Perspective (hers)
by vbfandragonballz
Summary: Sequel to the much beloved 3 year gap story 'Perspective (his)'. How could she not have seen it! ? Shot entirely from BULMA'S 'perspective' as our two favorite hot heads misunderstand every single word the other says and still manage to wind up together. Rating will change as story progresses. UPDATED WEEKLY!
1. Prelude

Please note: This is a story of perspectives, his and hers, and the many misunderstandings that can happen between two extremely proud people.

The counterpart story is already complete. You don't NEED to read that other story to get this one, but if you want to know the complete story from VEGETA'S perspective, just go to my other fic. 'Perspective (his)' under my account.

Thanx, and nope, naturally I don't own any of these characters, but I'm having great fun playing with them!

_**SETTING**__:_

_(If you're accustomed to 'three year gap' stories, skip down to the next bar)_

_We're starting from just after the Garlic Jr. Saga (after the Frieza saga) so all the Nameks have gone to their new home. We are just before the Android saga (which will lead to the Cell saga). If you're DBZ crazy enough, that should be all you need to know, if not, here's a quick sum up of the events (or you could watch the scenes at the bottom of the page):_

_Bulma, Krillin and Gohan went to Namek (Picollo's planet) and teamed up with Vegeta against Frieza. Goku defeated Frieza by becoming a super saiyan. It looked like he died killing Frieza, but he lived._

_Bulma invited the Nameks and Vegeta to live with her until the Namekian dragonballs could be used to make a new planet for them. (Frieza blew up the Namek's planet). The Nameks were grateful to Bulma and the Z Fighters for saving them and so said Bulma could use their balls first to make her own wishes._

_She tried first to wish Goku back, but it turned out he was alive and well and refusing to return yet. Vegeta got mad and stole a Capsule Corp ship to chase him. Bulma went on to wish the other fallen Z fighters back one by one. Once they were all back to life, the Nameks made their own wishes and left._

_18 months later Vegeta returned. He was mad. He searched the galaxy, but didn't find Goku. Yamcha ran out to where Vegeta crash-landed and was rather rude to him. He had a grudge against him because Bulma just said she had a sexy dream about Vegeta and then looked worriedly at the sky on realizing Vegeta was about to run out of fuel. Vegeta was already mad, so at that he turned his sights on Yamcha and threatened to kill him._

_Before Yamcha could respond, Bulma interrupted their fight, said Vegeta smelled and made him take a shower._

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><p><strong><em><span>CHAPTER 1:<span>_**

_/That IDIOT!/_ Bulma huffed angrily to herself as she flicked through the closet looking for **ANY** other shirt but the one in her hand. _/I can't BELIEVE him! What on Earth goes on in that head?! Doesn't he GET that Goku is __**gone**__?! Earth can't AFFORD to pick a fight right now! Gosh… But did he think of that?! Nope. Just waltzes up to the strongest guy in the solar system and challenges him to a death match./_

Of course, Yamcha (the 'idiot' in question) hadn't _technically_ challenged Vegeta, but he'd been about to! After 15 years Bulma knew that boy like the back of her hand.

_/Does his brain even think?! What, he thinks I'm gonna run off with VEGETA?! First of all, __**VEGETA?!**__ And even if it wasn't so completely STUPID, what's with that overreaction?! Gosh, doesn't he trust me at __**all?!**__/_

Well, she had to admit she'd been pushing a little hard on the jealousy button recently. But the jerk deserved it! Ever since that magazine had featured him the fangirls had tripled. And every time some little hottie asked for his autograph it was like Bulma ceased to exist. Naturally she wasn't just going to put up with that! And so she'd made up and told a little white lie to remind her boyfriend that **she** wasn't above looking elsewhere **either.** It was a simple plan. What was the harm?

She had been so very careful to pick Vegeta for her 'dream'. He was just perfect! Tough and handsome enough to make Yamcha jealous and simultaneously far _FAR_ away where her _IDIOT_ boyfriend couldn't accuse her of sneaking around or run off after the guy and threaten him. Or so she'd thought…

Until a certain spaceship ker-plonked onto the front lawn and released a grumpy, stinky, jet-lagged saiyan prince.

Right on cue.

_/Ugh! Why are men such idiots?! If I hadn't been there to get between those two hot heads the whole complex would probably be dust by now and half the city soon after it./_

But thankfully she HAD gotten between them. And she'd even managed to put Vegeta in the shower to calm him down a bit. Not that he'd stay calm for long once he saw the clothes she was about to lay out for him. Surely there was another shirt...

She continued hunting as she dragged down a pair of pants that looked about the right size. Bright yellow, unfortunately. A relic of a party they'd thrown a while ago. All the catering staff had been in yellow and white "To match the balloons!" as her mother put it. One waiter had obviously gone a little overboard in his dedication to 'servicing the guests' if he'd managed to go home without pants. She'd held onto them just in case, but no one had ever owned up.

She flicked on through the mismatched rack.

Bulma was running out of time. Vegeta would likely emerge from the shower soon and he'd want to get dressed. Any clothes were better than no clothes... although _these_ clothes made her doubt that. She looked hesitantly at the shirt in her hand.

/It's … salmon./ She told herself.

/It's **_pink_**./ Her mind replied.

And it was. The shirt in question was a bright, garish shade of pink with 'BAD MAN' scrawled across the back in block lettering. It was quite possibly the ugliest, most absurd shirt ever made. But for all its hideousness it was the ONLY shirt in the entire complex likely to go around Vegeta's shoulders. Even then she suspected he'd have to leave the top buttons open. It had been left by one of her friend's boyfriends after a pool party she'd hosted to celebrate the Taitans breaking their home run record. She hadn't returned it to him. She'd had a feeling he left it on purpose.

She looked at the lettering on the back… 'BAD MAN'

_/Bad Man only ever had two real hits, one barely charted, the other peaked at #6. July 23rd. Three years ago./_

_/NERD!/_ Ugh… Who REMEMBERED useless stuff like that?! She hated her freaky brain sometimes.

She looked longingly at the closet and quietly debated again. Was there really NOTHING else? Maybe she should skip the shirt altogether and just give him the singlet…

But, once the singlet material stretched around Vegeta's rib cage she had a feeling it would try to ride up. She didn't want him pulling at it all day…

Oh, but… pink? Bad Man? It wasn't likely he'd heard of any Earth bands, let alone such an obscure one… he'd probably think it was a reference to him! What if he blew up over it? Vegeta was pretty hot headed…

_/Well, that's why Yamcha's getting Krillin./_ She thought.

Vegeta had openly admitted he was just _itching_ for a good fight to stretch his muscles after being cooped up in that little ship for so long. Any little thing and he'd have the excuse he needed. And this shirt would be one hell of an excuse. Once Vegeta got started, strong as Yamcha was, he wouldn't last one second. If anything the prince would kill him so fast he'd wind up even more aggrivated. Then, knowing these fighter types, he'd probably just start blowing stuff up at random to let off steam. But with Krillin there... between them the boys could _probably_ draw him out of town and tag team long enough for his majesty to get it out of his system and settle down...

...maybe.

But that was the _least_ of her worries right then.

Bulma couldn't help but feel the sword looming over all their heads. What would they do in a 'worst case scenario'? What if Vegeta was there to wipe them out?

After all, Vegeta wanted Goku. He wanted to find him so bad he'd stolen a ship and scoured the galaxy for 18 months. In that time, had he become a 'super saiyan' as well?

Vegeta was competitive. He wanted to be the strongest. It made sense that he would obsess about versing the only other super saiyan out there. And now, having failed to find him, he had returned to Earth. And Bulma knew there was a distinct possibility he wasn't just stopping by for a re-fuel. The second he'd stepped out and asked for Goku, Bulma's mind had seen his plan.

_/Want to fight Goku? Why chase him when you can have him chase you? Start_ by killing_ everyone he cares about, finishing with his wife and child. If that doesn't do it, wipe out the entire Earth in a massive, flashy attack that lights up the quadrant. If he's anywhere nearby, he'll see it, he'll get mad, and he'll come running. And voila! One Goku. Itching for a fight./_

It was simple. It was logical. It was efficient. And worst of all, it would be easy for Vegeta. Heck, genocide used to be his day job! And it wasn't likely anyone could stop him. If he HAD become a super saiyan, and he seriously went for the Earth, Bulma had a strong suspicion even Yamcha and Krillin together would hardly slow him down. Gohan and Piccolo wouldn't do much better... The Earth would fall. It would fall fast.

Bulma started to think. If the Earth fell, then what?

Thankfully, there was a spare set of dragon balls out there with three wishes at the ready. But those balls only brought back one person per wish, and Earth's set only brought back people who'd been dead less than a year. That meant Goku would only have one year to notice the Earth was gone, get stronger than Vegeta, get home, defeat Vegeta, get to New Namek, wish Kami back, wish the Earth back, wish the Earth Dragon Balls back, collect the Earth balls and wish humanity back.

She pondered... If anyone could do it, it was Goku, but one year wasn't very long…

_/Maybe I should remind Krillin to call him from King Kai's world… Give him a heads up to get a move on.../_

Oh, but then Krillin would know she expected him to die first. Poor guy HATED dying… He'd died twice already. It seemed like he hardly EVER got to join the after-fight party. He was always stuck on otherworld waiting to be resurrected.

Plus, once Krillin died Yamcha would soon follow. He'd made calls from there before. Surely _he'd_ remember to call Goku?

And then there was still Gohan. He missed his dad like crazy! He'd jump at the chance to call him up.

Yeah. Gohan was her best bet.

She summed up the plan. _**If**_ Vegeta went after the Earth, and _**if**_ Krillin and Yamcha were both already dead **_and_** it was Gohan's turn to fight, then before he went in she'd find a way to pull him aside and remind him to go to King Kai's and call his dad after Vegeta killed him. Yeah. That was a better plan. Goku would definitely come right away if it was his dead son calling. And he'd be pretty darn ticked off at whoever killed him. He'd throw everything into getting his revenge. He wouldn't quit until Vegeta was dead. Bulma smiled contentedly to herself, then froze.

_/Oh GOSH what am I __**thinking?!**__/_ When did she start thinking like **that?!** She hadn't even felt a thing! If anything she had been pleased with herself! Who was she?! What sort of monster would calmly smile while planning the brutal death of a child! That poor little boy! He wasn't even old enough to shave! And he was such a sweet little kid! And she wanted to throw him to a professional killer, just to force his super saiyan dad into action and save herself?!

She immediately stopped her train of thought. When had her friends become chess pieces?!

Stupid stupid Goku! This was all HIS fault! She didn't like the person he had made her when he left.

Oh how she longed for those days when she had faced every alien attack totally and completely certain, with all her heart, that Goku would save them. That no matter how far away he was, no matter what he was doing, no matter who tried to stop him, that if they really needed him, he would **find** a way. He would come. He belonged to Earth and Earth belonged to him.

But then, he'd left.

Not because he had to. Because he **wanted** to. He'd really left. And yet, even then, like an idiot, she had believed he would come. If they needed him, he would come.

But less than a year later, Earth had needed him. They had been attacked. The whole planet had been at stake. Kami had nearly died. Krillin had nearly died. His own **son** had nearly died. And even as the entire Earth and everyone he once loved hung by a thread, crying out for him to save them...

He didn't come.

And now she knew.

Earth was on its own.

Stupid Goku. Stupid STUPID **GOKU!** If he was just gonna leave he shouldn't have let them get so dependent on him! That was like feeding a wild animal. Oh sure, it seems like you're helping, but pretty soon they forget how to survive without you. And when you leave, they die.

Well, Bulma had decided they would NOT die. They would survive.

But the transition phase was never going to be easy. Ever since she'd realized they were alone she had been constantly on edge. It never used to worry her at all. Earth's under attack? Call Goku, he'll sort it out. But with that option gone she now she felt like all she ever did was worry and plan for disaster. And she HATED it! It was stupid! The worry didn't solve anything. It just gave her wrinkles and now that she was past 30, more wrinkles was the LAST thing she needed.

She looked down at the clothes draped over her arm.

_/Stop freaking out. Vegeta's strong, but he's not gonna kill us. He's a good person. You __**know**__ that./_

And truthfully, she did. In fact, he was one of the best people she'd ever met.

He was a professional hit man. Yes. But everyone he'd killed had been dead before he got there. If he hadn't killed them, Frieza would just have had someone else do it. And in serving Frieza, he had positioned himself to wipe out the entire planet trade organization and make sure that nightmare ended for good. He was an undercover agent. A hero. No wonder Goku liked him.

And as soon as Frieza was gone, Vegeta had finally been free to show who he really was all along.

Back on Namek, on their first meeting all she could see was 'Vegeta the exterminator'. But afterwards she had realized, as soon as Krillin gave him the dragon ball, he just took it and left. No double cross. No dirty tricks. He kept his word and left them alive and unharmed.

He sure wasn't anything like Frieza.

Once he was revived on Earth, she had really thought he would wipe out Krillin for making the wishes while he was asleep, but he'd never even held a grudge. It had never been about himself. He just wanted Frieza gone. He wanted what they all wanted.

He'd cheered at Goku's death, since it left him the strongest man in the universe, but then on seeing Goku's son at the brink of tears he instantly stepped in and offered to raise him. As the last saiyan man, he had calmly told the last saiyan child that he would not be left orphaned. He would be cared for. And when Gohan refused him, he didn't force him, he just showed him what he could teach him and then left him to think it over. And then he had personally crafted the wish sequence they could use to bring Goku back. He'd been willing to give up his title as strongest, just so Gohan would have his family back.

That had sealed it. He was a nice guy. Minutes later she was offering him a place to stay, and just as she'd thought, though he lived in her house for three months, nothing went missing and nothing blew up. When they made their next wishes, he just watched. Didn't even try to take one for himself.

Heck, he was practically a saint!

She calmed down.

Vegeta was NOT going to blow up the Earth. He probably didn't even think of it! That sort of cold efficiency was Frieza's style, not his. Although Bulma didn't really like the knowledge that she could think like Frieza... She pushed the unsettling realization away.

She looked at the shirt.

Actually... that dead ugly shirt might be an opportunity.

Vegeta was nice. He deserved to have nice friends.

She knew he didn't want to be all by himself for the rest of his life. Judging by his reaction when Gohan turned him down, he had really wanted to raise him. Now he was searching endlessly for Goku. Was he really looking for a fight? Or was he maybe looking for ... a family? A place to belong? His home was gone. His friends were dead. He had nowhere to go. Where did he belong now?

It made sense that he would try to begin rebuilding his life by connecting with other saiyans.

But Goku was nowhere and Gohan wanted nothing to do with him. Poor guy. He was a hero. He had, in every sense, given his life to save the galaxy. But now that it was over, it was like the universe had forgotten to reward him. He was all alone.

She smiled. Earth could be a **_perfect_** fresh start for him! The guys would love a new super strong member to fill the void Goku left, and, though it was a little selfish to think it, he'd sure make an amazing addition to the planet's defense.

But... the guys... Vegeta's awful past...

Could he ever fit in? Could they ever accept him? And could he even handle 'normal guys'? The Z fighters were a pretty tight bunch, they liked to goof around. Vegeta seemed pretty closed off after all those years under Frieza, watching every word. Could he ever make 'real' friends?

She continued to look at the shirt as her smile widened. _/There's one good way to find out.../_

She dashed back to the bathroom.

Bulma laid the hideous clothes on the counter, her hand hovering against them in one last moment of hesitation.

_/No__. Vegeta needs a chance to make some friends. If I can just get the boys to loosen up around him, pretty soon he'll be like one of the gang. It's just a shirt. If he can't handle it and blows up, we'll deal with it.__/ _She collected her nerve. _/_And if he turns super saiyan on us and tries to blow __**us**__ up_... which he won't, because he's a nice guy, but if he does... we'll deal with that too. Earth's gonna have to learn to defend itself, sooner or later./_

She picked up the frayed, sweat-stained remnant of his bodysuit and tossed it in the washing machine. Gosh, that thing STANK! Did he even know there was a shower in the ship? How hard was it to wash your clothes with yourself? What was it with men and doing housework? Was it just a universal agreement they'd all gotten together on?

Krillin and Yamcha's voices began echoing in from the balcony. Good. Everything was all set. They'd have a laugh. They'd see Vegeta's not so scary side and before you know it they'd be asking him to come surfing with them at Kame House. Vegeta would finally have the fresh start he deserved.

The Z Fighters were an odd bunch, but they were true friends who stuck together through thick and thin. Once the Prince was accepted, they would have his back forever.

She glanced hopefully at him through the glass, knowing from Goku that saiyans couldn't care less who saw them naked. He was covered in scars from top to bottom.

_/Wow. Rough./ _

Goku always healed clean. It was one of the things that made him so amazing. No matter how deep or messy the cut, all it took was a quick patch job and a week later he hardly had a mark on him. But she supposed Frieza must not have allowed Vegeta the luxury of letting wounds heal before they were torn open again in the next fight. Some looked like they'd been split at least half a dozen times before they finally mended.

That had to hurt.

She traced her eyes along in an odd mix of awe and pity until she came to the dark area at the base of his spine. The remnants of his tail...

_/Poor guy.../ _She thought quietly. _/Goku **loved** his little tail. He really missed it when it was gone.../_

She thought back to that moment little Goku had first tried to stand without it and had immediately fallen on his backside with an adorable confused *plonk*.

Bulma found herself biting back a fit of giggles as she pictured Vegeta doing the same.

Step, step, *plonk!*

_/Oh, that is WAY too cute for Vegeta!/_

She collected herself and smiled at the lonely hero. THAT was the side of him the guys needed to see. Vegeta was a little rough, but he was a sweet guy. He had proven it over and over. Why was she so suspicious of everyone?! Gosh!

From now on she would set the example! She would treat Vegeta just like 'one of the boys'! Make him feel welcome.

"Hee~y you! I brought you some fresh clothes!" She called cheerfully through the rippled glass of the shower door.

No answer...

Ok... So good guy and _polite_ guy didn't always come together.

"HelloOo! Anybody **alive** in there?!" She yelled.

Vegeta growled from inside. "I **heard** you! You can **leave** now."

Oh, what was with that tone?! Had Vegeta been human, she'd have taken it as simple embarrassment from having a pretty girl casually staring at his naked butt, but since he was saiyan, like Goku, she knew he didn't get embarrassed. Had he actually just _dismissed_ her!? Like some sort of servant!?

Bulma felt her temper building. Gosh! So much for gratitude! Did he even know what sort of favor she was doing for him by setting him up with her friends like this?!

"Why YES, Master!" She called again sarcastically. "Your WISH is my command! rrRRRgh!"

She stormed out of the bathroom. Gosh! 'You can leave now'?! This was HER **HOUSE!** Who did he think he WAS?!

_/Duh. A prince!/_ Her mind replied. _/He might've been just a slave to Frieza, but to everyone else he probably grew up being treated like... well... royalty! He probably had servants and everything!/_

Wait... Vegeta was pretty literal.

Would he even know that 'yes master' she shouted at him was supposed to be sarcastic? Oh, if that was the case then she needed to lay some ground rules fast! If he was going to be joining the team he'd have to **behave** himself. And there was a **LOT** more to behaving yourself than just not killing Krillin.

She heard the boys beginning to fret through the door.

"He's just so unpredictable!" Krillin said worriedly. "It's hard to know what he's after..."

"I think he just wants to find Goku... poor guy." Yamcha replied.

Bulma stepped out, deliberately standing in the doorway so she could keep an eye on the bathroom door.

"He's just used to getting his way." She cut in, halting where that conversation was leading. She needed them to keep an open mind. "Like a spoiled little kid."

"Ha-ha! Sounds like you!" Yamcha laughed.

Bulma felt her irritation homing in on a new target but her mind was still too distracted by Vegeta to bother responding. She heard Vegeta's voice ring out.

"SERVANT WOMAN! BRING ME A DRYING CLOTH AT ONCE!"

Oh, he _**definitely**_ misunderstood that 'yes master'.

"WOMAN!? CAN YOU **HEAR** ME?!" He shouted again.

"Rrgh! I heard you!" She shouted back, perching her hands on her hips. "But my name is Bulma! And I am NOT your servant! So say please! Hmph!"

"Augh! Forget about the drying cloth then!" He grumbled.

Really! What was so hard about a little courtesy?!

Ok, yes, in her rush she _had_ forgotten a towel... but he would seriously rather go without than ask politely? He had to be bluffing. Well, she would NOT be the first to back down.

"Suit yourself! Drip dry you jerk!"

She paused and waited for him to give in and ask nicely.

His voice echoed out again, somewhat more uncertainly than before. "I-Is this some sort of joke?!"

_/Oh darn... here we go. He's found the shirt.../  
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><p><strong>Please review!<strong>

**And if you like the story, PLEASE favorite as it encourages more people to read it.**

**Thx, see you next chapter.**

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><p><strong>WANT TO WATCH? INCORPORATED SCENES (And scenes alluded to in story):<strong>

**(TIME REFERENCES AND TITLES AS THEY APPEAR ON 'VIMEO')**

**DBZ 056 (Zarbon's Mission)18:00-End = Vegeta and Bulma 1st meet on Namek**

**DBZ 057 (Gohan the Hunted) (2:47-5:47) (6:57-7:18) (7:53-8:00) (13:37-13:39) (15:58-19:03) = Bulma watches Vegeta fight for 1st time. Spends most of time cowering in fear. Vegeta brutally kills opponent then threatens to go after Bulma (sort of threatens to molest/assault her) if Krillin doesn't give up**

**DBZ 102 (Duel on a Vanishing Planet) (6:52-8:43) (9:05-9:35)(11:50-12:18) = Bulma and Vegeta's first conversation - Bulma still afraid of him**

**DBZ 104 (Frieza Defeated) 3:38-11:43 = Bulma listens to Vegeta's monologue about what he's been through. Much less scared after hearing all that**

**DBZ 106 (Namek's explosion... Goku's End)(10:28-13:12)(14:33-END) = Bulma announces Goku's Death. Vegeta attempts to adopt Gohan now that his father is dead. (Author note: Wow! Noble!) Gohan refuses. Vegeta brutally beats him and tells him he needs to face the truth**

**DBZ 107 (Goku's Alive!) (0:00-3:00) = Bulma explains why Goku cannot be resurrected, Vegeta devises plan to resurrect Kakarot and Bulma is truly grateful. She asks Nameks to stay at her place and flirts with Vegeta for the first time, asking him to stay**

**DBZ 107 (Goku's Alive!) (5:00-5:58) = Vegeta meets Bulma's parents. Can't cope with warm fuzzy family**

**DBZ 107 (Goku's Alive!) (10:20-10:43)(12:30-14:00) = Goku won't come home yet. Vegeta chases him in stolen ship**

**DBZ 118 (Frieza's Counterattack) 03:36-4:30 = Bulma announces hot dream about Vegeta. Mrs Brief says Dr Brief estimated he'd be out of fuel soon. Bulma gets worried for Vegeta.**

**DBZ 118 (Frieza's Counterattack) 11:44-15:41 = Vegeta crashes. Bulma gets him in the shower. Balcony.**


	2. Chapter 1

**REMINDER: This is a story of perspectives, his and hers, the counterpart story is already complete. You don't NEED to read that other story to get this one, but if you want to know the complete story from VEGETA'S perspective, just go to my other fic. 'Perspective (his)' under my account.**

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><p><em>Ok, it's all on you now Vegeta./_ She reminded herself of all the reasons why this was important. They needed to loosen up around him of he'd never be able to fit in. She turned, gathering her confidence in Vegeta's good qualities and praying they'd shine through. "...is ... what a joke?"

"These garments you left me..." He paused, obviously appalled. "A-Are they for a man or a woman?! THEY'RE **PINK!"**

Hey, don't sweat it." She giggled. "It's the style here."

"Men in pink... how bizarre..." He mumbled but didn't protest further.

She winked at the boys, letting them in on the joke. They instantly burst into wild laughter.

_/Yes! Perfect./ _She joined them, congratulating herself on coming up with such an excellent way to get all the Z Fighters to instantly take to their newest member._ /Bulma Brief! Gorgeous on the outside, genius on the inside and now with new matchmaking feature! Has there ever been such an amazing gift to the world as little me?/_

She turned to see Vegeta walking awkwardly from the bathroom in the ill-fitting clothes.

"This is absurd! I am a warrior! Not a..." he searched for the right words, "... a variety of flower!"

Bulma felt herself getting the giggles again and followed his flower reference with one of her own. "Well... you smell good!"

She erupted in renewed laughter as the boys joined in.

"STOP THAT!" Vegeta started to get mad. "STOP IT or I'll BLAST you **ALL!"**

The joke died and all of them went instantly silent.

Vegeta glared at them, looking his usual dangerous self.

Bulma looked back at him, processing his words... _/'Stop **OR** I'll blast you all?'/_ She thought._ /Meaning he wasn't **planning** on blasting us all until now? Meaning... He isn't planning to blow up the Earth? Yes! Score one for Bulma!/_

She KNEW he was a nice guy!

She smiled. "Hey, loosen up! Fighting's no fun, take a vacation!"

He glanced her up and down as she continued to talk, then immediately walked straight past her, clearly ignoring her so he could talk with the other menfolk at the table. Oh, why did men only care what other men said?

He soon discovered none of them knew where Goku was. She could've told him that. But that was fine. He'd taken his teasing better than she could have dreamed. And now he was sitting with the other Z Fighters like he'd been there forever and she could already see them loosening up, offering him an ice tea as they silently sympathized with his wardrobe.

She smiled, thrilled. This was working.

"If you want to find Goku, just stay here!" She blurted excitedly, unable to contain her enthusiasm one more second. "I've known Goku since he was five years old, trust me, he'll _be_ back."

Well, she wasn't as certain as she'd have liked, but she _had_ to believe... if only for Gohan's sake. _/Goku won't abandon his family. He died for Gohan. He loves him. He WILL come back for him... one day. I just know it./_

She watched as Vegeta considered her words, finally giving a pensive grunt which she translated as a grateful acceptance of her incredible hospitality.

"Well then, that's settled!" She said happily.

Oh wow, she was already feeling easier just knowing Vegeta would be staying around. She really had missed having a saiyan nearby... She hadn't realized how much until then.

Yamcha jumped up. "Bulma no WAY! You're not serious?!"

Bulma felt her irritation building. Wait, was he getting jealous again?! _/Gosh, this boy... Can't he see I'm just trying to make the poor guy feel WELCOME?!/_

"Of course I'm serious!" Was he really going to get upset about her and **Vegeta** living together?! Bulma shot her boyfriend a 'look'. She was getting pretty _sick_ of this binge he'd been on lately.

"He needs a place to stay and we've got plenty of room. Besides, did you forget he saved your life? If it weren't for him we'd _never_ have gotten those Namek dragon balls." She knew he couldn't argue with _that._

"But Bulma-" Krillin spoke up, slightly confused.

"But nothing!" She quickly interrupted before Krillin could mention that prior to helping resurrect Yamcha, Vegeta _had _kinda... killed him. But that didn't matter! He'd helped save him in the end. Plus it was all in the past now anyway, what were they dragging it up for?!

"Vegeta' s staying with us. End of story." She stormed into the house.

A moment later she calmed down enough to stop and look behind her. A look that revealed she was 'storming' alone. She'd been in such a hurry to close the subject she'd forgotten to _bring_ the subject with her! Her cheeks pinked with embarrassment as she quietly turned and stomped back to the balcony.

"Well?!" She glared at Vegeta. Didn't he know she'd been trying to make a grand exit? Could he have ruined it more if he'd tried? "Are you coming in or not, hot stuff?"

Vegeta paused a moment, making her wait. She KNEW it! He'd made her come back like that on purpose to ruin her victory! rrrRRRrr! These boys! Maybe Vegeta would fit in a little **too** well.

Finally, once he'd decided she'd sweated enough he stood, shooting a little victory glance over his shoulder to the other boys before following her inside.

.

.

.

Bulma lead him through the halls, still feeling pretty pleased with herself. She passed a clock.

_/Nearly lunchtime... __I'd better give the chef a heads up if we're gonna be feeding a saiyan./_

"Ok, first things first. " She said as she altered her path towards the main kitchen, they needed to start cooking, she could get him settled in afterwards. "If you're going to be staying here, there's someone who needs to know right away."

She anticipated the reception she'd get from the chef when he found out he'd be feeding saiyan on a regular basis from now on. Chef didn't particularly like saiyans. He always hated when Goku came to visit. Rare as a visit from Goku was, he'd complain for weeks afterwards. The way Goku ate ticked him off. It didn't matter how poorly or well the food was prepared, it all vanished in an instant like it had been tossed in a disposal.

And now he was going to be providing a full saiyan diet. All three mains, plus snacks, possibly for months.

"Man, he's gonna pitch a fit, I just know it..." She grumbled to herself.

Well, chef would just have to get over it. Saiyans meant safe planets and empty refrigerators. That was fact. And after 18 months in deep space eating nothing but ship rations Vegeta was probably about ready to consume three times his bodyweight in food.

Not that he'd likely admit it.

Actually, come to think of it, if it weren't for her prior knowledge of saiyan appetites from Goku, she'd probably have assumed Vegeta didn't even get hungry.

Ever.

They sure were exact opposites. Goku was so open. People seemed to gather around him wherever he went and the whole house filled with light and laughter whenever he stopped by. Plus, if Goku wanted something, he'd let you know right away. **Especially** when it came to food. He was practically made of fun. He was happy and noisy and easy to like.

But Vegeta... people seemed to pull away from him wherever he went. Plus he was so... quiet. He knew how to give threats and orders, but off the battlefield he hardly ever spoke unless you spoke first, and he **never** complained. She had a feeling no matter how hungry or thirsty or tired he was, you'd never hear about it. He seemed all stiff and stern and professional. Like he was always 'on duty'. It was probably because he was a soldier for so long.

It was cool, in its own way, but it made it hard to get to know him. Put him in a room of people and he'd instantly blend into the background. Even now, as they walked together, he was perfectly silent. She couldn't even hear his footsteps.

Bulma started wanting to get him talking. He was so mysterious! It'd sure be nice to get to know what went on in there... but without a good subject she was soon just awkwardly filling the silence by pointing out various rooms and facilities as they walked.

They came past the animal enclosure and she spotted her father.

"Dad!" She dashed over to him, grateful to have a third person in the conversation. Maybe he'd be better in a group. Yamcha had been pretty reserved at first too. He'd had a hard time talking when there weren't other guys around to take the pressure off. Even now, he sort of shut off when it was just the two of them.

She turned to Vegeta. "You remember my father, Dr Brief?"

Vegeta gave a slight nod, still dead silent.

Well, so much for that. He really wasn't going to give her much to work with.

She turned frustratedly back to her father. "Hey, dad, Vegeta's back. He needs a place to crash for a while, so I told him he could stay with us."

"Oh? That explains the spaceship in the yard." He smiled at Vegeta. "You sure do take the phrase 'place to crash' quite literally!"

Bulma smiled and rolled her eyes as her father laughed at his own joke. She looked to Vegeta to share in the awfulness of 'dad jokes'.

Vegeta remained silent. His usual fierce, expressionless face stayed focused on her father and didn't react. He might as well have been a piece of rock.

Her smile faded, this was going to be tougher than she'd thought.

Eventually Dr Brief realized no one else was going to laugh and re composed himself. "Nice to see you back safely son. You just let us know if there's anything you need."

He turned to Bulma. "Bulma dear, the spaceship is blocking your mother's access to the swimming pool. I tried to re-capsulize it, but it's damaged. I wonder if you wouldn't mind taking a look at it when you get time?"

"No problem dad." She said distractedly. Would it _kill_ Vegeta to join a conversation? "Just let me get this guy settled in first."

"Oh, no rush." Her father wandered off, buried in his work again.

"Ok," She said aloud, something about being stuck with the silence again bringing out the narrator in her. "Now for the main event."

She lead him determinedly down towards the kitchen, pointing out more rooms along the way. She decided she flat out refused to quit trying to make him talk. She would just keep talking until he started talking back.

She finally reached the door to the kitchen, pausing to steady her nerves before pushing it open. "Let's get this over with..."

She looked into the kitchen to see the familiar array of Capsule Corp Food Prep robots.

"Everyone!" She called out. "This is Vegeta. He's staying to lunch. He's a relative of Son Goku, so initiate Goku menu protocols."

"Uaah!" The head Chef robot began to flail about in a panic. "Mistress Bulma we need more warning! There's less than an hour until lunch is to be served! We don't have enough supplies! There's no way... Just no way! Such a thing can't be done all of a sudden!"

Bulma rolled her eyes. _/Great... Here we go./_

Gosh, that Chef 'bot was _**such**_ a drama queen.

But she liked him anyway. Cooking was as much an art as a science. And Capsule Corp was dedicated to making their robots the best of the best. Emotion and personality were just as important as knowledge and skill when making truly great food. All commercial Capsule Corp Chef 'bots had a wide selection of personalities to choose from, it was standard.

She watched them freaking out. Just the _thought_ of feeding a full grown saiyan on short notice and some looked about ready to overload.

"Calm down. Calm down." She tried to soothe them before they blew a circuit. "Just do the best you can and make up the rest with takeout for now."

She paused, then dropped the REAL bomb. "He's going to be staying a while, so factor it into your grocery order from now on okay?"

She let the door shut as Chef began to scream.

"I hate doing that..." She sighed as she leaned against the door, locking them in.

_/Poor things... I guess I can sympathize. They're gonna have a rough time with a stomach like his to fill every day./_ She glanced at him. _/Come to think of it, I don't remember them freaking out like that the last time he visited./_

Bulma started to get that 'I've forgotten something' feeling.

"I am NOT related to that third class moron." Vegeta grumbled.

"Well, you're more related to him than anyone else around here." She replied distractedly. What was she forgetting?

Once she was certain none of them were going to try to escape she picked herself up from the door. "You heard chef, lunch is in an hour, and you'd **better** show up."

She wasn't going to be put through their endless complaining for nothing.

A deep voice echoed from behind her. "Or WHAT, woman?!"

Bulma froze._ /Wait a minute. Vegeta... he ... he's talking! He's actually talking! YES! I **knew** if I kept talking long enough he'd start talking back!/_

She whipped around to face him excitedly, full of renewed confidence. "Or I won't tell you any stories about me and Goku growing up together. I told you, I've known him since we were kids, I know everything about him! How he got his strength, and where. You're planning to fight him, right? Don't you think it might be useful to know a little about your enemy?"

Vegeta stood silently again, but Bulma beamed anyway. She had enough stories about Goku to last a century! He'd talked. Now she just needed to make him do it again. She'd just keep talking until he cracked.

She turned back around happily. "Your room should be upstairs from here, this way. You can get settled in until lunch is served."

He walked quietly after her again. As the silence settled in that 'forgot something' feeling came back. She tried to think to his last visit as they walked. No matter how hard she thought, she couldn't remember hearing a single peep of complaint from any of the kitchen robots over the entire time he'd lived with them. That sure was weird... She hadn't really thought about it until now. At the time the whole place had been packed to the gills with Nameks. They were no trouble to the kitchens, they only ate water, but they had sure kept **her** running off her feet playing hostess for them all. Plus, hiding over 50 little green men in her house hadn't exactly been easy. Keeping the press off the scent had been a living nightmare for everyone.

Needless to say, she hadn't really had time for Vegeta. Plus, he was just so quiet... it was like he wasn't even there.

But no matter what he was STILL a saiyan, his appetite should have had the kitchen in hysterics!

The 'forgotten something' feeling got louder as her mind closed in on the source.

Had the kitchen been informed that he was staying? Had she remembered to do that? Had _anyone_ remembered to? Wait... had they even fed him AT ALL?!

Bulma felt a pang of **powerful** guilt._ /Oh that poor guy! He must've been completely **starving!**/_

Three whole months having to fend for himself! No WONDER they hardly ever saw him while he was there! He must have spent the whole time out in the wilderness hunting for each meal like a stray cat! She knew he was capable of hunting his own food but still! Could her hostess skills have been WORSE?! He probably thought they just didn't care about him!

She had a feeling this was one of those times when normal people apologize... but that had never been Bulma's style. Instead she started getting very very angry.

_/That **idiot!** Why didn't he **say** anything?!/_

She began wracking her brain for something she could do to make it up to him. Could she look into adding some extra units to the kitchen staff while he stayed?

_/Done! That Prince will eat like a King from here on!/_

She presented the idea to her conscience, but it replied that feeding him properly now wasn't NEARLY enough to make up for starving him for three months. There should be more... what else?

She felt her trademark temper dragging up further. _/Stubborn** jerk!** Acting all tough like he never gets hungry. How **dare** he make me forget him like that! Idiot.../_

Maybe she could repair something for him. Did he have anything that needed fixing? Wait, yes! His armor! It was alien tech, but Bulma was pretty sure she could figure it out if she really set her mind to it.

Endless food and brand new armor... Not enough. Her conscience continued to complain at her as she approached his door.

/_AAGH! STUPID STUPID **STUPID IDIOT!** This is** SO **not fair! Why do **I** have to come up with something?!/_

She wracked her brain... WHAT ELSE?! Food and battle gear... Aside from someone to fight there was nothing else saiyans WANTED!

She tried to calm down and think logically. If anyone could come up with something it was her. Bulma had spent her entire life in a family that already had everything they could possibly want. She knew better than anyone if you wanted to give someone something and couldn't think of a good gift, you shouldn't settle for a bad one. It was better to do something nice for them instead.

Maybe some sort of grand gesture?

Was there anything she knew how to cook?

Oh gosh... really? She was actually thinking of **COOKING** for him?! She didn't even cook for herself! Or Yamcha for that matter, and he was her boyfriend!

But she sure as anything wasn't going to apologize and she wanted her conscience OFF her back!

She supposed she could work the barbecue... She'd seen Yamcha doing it before. It didn't look too hard. Yeah. As long as chef did all the prep and setup and, you know, actual 'work'. That way she'd just have to stand there and poke at the meat and make sure nothing caught fire.

She could probably do that...

Her conscience settled, content with the equation. Three good deeds in payment for three bad months. That should balance the debt.

She dropped him off at the door to his old room, still furious with him.

"It should be the same as you left it." She said angrily as she turned away. "I'm gonna go see what I can do about that beaten up old armor you came back in."

_/Gosh... He'd better be grateful for all this. I can't BELIEVE I have to **COOK!/** _

She paused, her mind raising a red flag. A tough guy like Vegeta... he might NOT be grateful. After all, she had been being especially nice to him all day. Setting him up with the guys, giving him free room and board... if she followed that up immediately with home cooking and new armor. It had a high chance backfiring. All that kindness, all in a row, a guy like Vegeta might start feeling like a charity case and get embarrassed, maybe even offended!

She decided to give him a job to maintain his pride. "After lunch you can help me move that spaceship you **broke. **Might as well make yourself useful while you're here."

She wandered off to get his armor out of the wash.

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><p><strong>Please review!<strong>

**And if you like the story, PLEASE favorite as it encourages more people to read it.**

**Thx, see you next chapter.**


	3. Chapter 2

**REMINDER: This is a story of perspectives, his and hers, the counterpart story is already complete. You don't NEED to read that other story to get this one, but if you want to know the complete story from VEGETA'S perspective, just go to my other fic. 'Perspective (his)' under my account.**

**Note: The scene at the end of this chapter (taken directly from the anime) was deliberately shortened to prevent mass boredom. The cut lines don't ( in my opinion) change anything important. If you want the full, uncut dialogue from that incredibly long scene, feel free to type it out yourself...**

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><p>Bulma poked uncertainly at the expertly prepared meats and skewers as they sizzled over the flame, focusing all her concentration on not destroying them. She picked up one that looked the right colour and shifted it onto Krillin's plate. He absently thanked her, distracted by staring in awe at Vegeta.<p>

Sure enough, Bulma had been right. Vegeta was **hungry.** The saiyan was cleaning each plate almost instantly as soon as the kitchen brought them out, meanwhile he was also keeping pace with the rest of the table, all of whom were eating purely from the barbecue. Bulma marveled at a digestive system that could absorb and convert so much food so quickly.

Saiyans sure were amazing. Her scientist mind decided they must have been able to condense and store energy in some sort of third form, besides sugar and fat, something more efficient. It was actually a pretty cool thought. And it finally put to rest the endless questions she had always kept to herself whenever she watched Goku eat. Finding out he was an alien sure had explained a lot.

Krillin echoed her thoughts. "Boy, you saiyans sure can pack it away... I always thought Goku was the only one who could do that."

Vegeta scowled at being compared to Goku again. He finished what was on his plate and glanced to see there was no more food to be had from the barbecue yet. A quick gulp of his drink later he turned his attention to her.

"I came to your lunch, woman." He said, setting the glass down. "Now I believe you promised me intelligence on killing Kakarot."

_/He just HAD to phrase it like THAT./_ Bulma rolled her eyes.

"Huh?" Krillin looked worriedly at her. "Wait, what?"

"Oh relax," She said casually, glancing over the hot plate one last time before taking her seat. "I just promised to tell him some stories about me and Goku and the crazy stuff we used to get up to."

"Oh, awesome!" Krillin said. "You mind if I hang around and listen in too? I always wondered what that guy got up to before I met him, but whenever I'd ask he'd just talk about his favorite battles without telling me how the fight started or how he got there."

Yamcha laughed and Bulma smiled, predicting Krillin visiting even more than he had been. She liked that idea. Poor guy had really taken it hard when Marin dumped him. He'd been totally had over heels for that girl. Without her to follow around the mall as she spent his money he seemed kind of... lost.

She could tell he felt awkward coming over so often but she and Yamcha had made a point of making him feel welcome. They'd gotten in the habit of inviting him over whenever anything was happening, and whenever they hit the dance clubs they twisted his arm to come too. There was only so much time a young guy could spend on a tiny Island with an old hermit. He needed to get back out there.

"Now then... Well I suppose it's best to just start at the beginning. " She tapped a finger against her lip, watching as the whole table focused excitedly on her. She grinned. "Once upon a time there was a beautiful, talented genius named Bulma Brief."

Oolong groaned as she continued to tell them all about that very first dragon ball in her basement and the nine whole days it had taken to find out the ancient legend, invent the dragon radar and get her things together. She glanced fondly at Yamcha as she mentioned her desire to find a 'perfect boyfriend', watching him puff up proudly in response to the implication that he had been it.

Things really had been particularly good between them since he'd died. Funny how losing something could make you appreciate it. All their silly fights and games... none of it had mattered. At that moment, sobbing as she looked at his fallen form, she'd realised she loved him. When she had found out there was a chance to bring him back, she hadn't hesitated. She'd risked everything, become braver than she'd ever imagined in her determined quest to find the dragon balls and wish him back to life. And now that she had him, she wasn't holding back anymore. The minute he'd been resurrected they had started dating again, but not like before. Now, she was in. All in. And it felt good.

Eventually she made it to the point in the story where she had that first encounter with the cutest little alien ever.

"Man, I still remember it like it was yesterday." She said nostalgically. "I fired that whole round point blank straight into his skull, but those bullets just bounced right off. He grabbed his head and started complaining about 'stingy things' like it he'd been bitten by a bee! It was incredible!"

"Bulma really?!" Yamcha interrupted, appalled. "You fired a gun at a little kid?"

"Oh!" Bulma looked around the table as everyone stared at her in shocked horror. Everyone but Vegeta, of course. Vegeta had a big, pleased grin on his face, obviously loving the idea of a little Goku getting his skull fired into at point blank range. "W...Well I thought he was a highway robber and... I just, sort of grabbed the gun and fired until it was empty. Come on guys, I was sixteen."

"But you said Goku didn't look more than five years old." Krillin said, still in shock. "Wow, Bulma. That's cold."

Bulma felt her temper flaring up. "OH, WHAT'S THE BIG DEAL?!" She jumped from her seat, banging her fist on the table before flopping back down. "So I tried to kill him once, so what?! He survived and we became friends. That's pretty much how ALL of us met him. ISN'T IT?!"

She shot a glare at the table of professional fighters, killers and thieves she chose to call friends, daring them to argue.

Vegeta was the first to speak. "ALL of you have tried to kill Kakarot?" He asked in awe.

"Well, pretty much." Yamcha laughed bashfully.

Bulma watched Vegeta finally looking interested as the boys began to swap stories about attempts on Goku's life. She calmed down grumbling inwardly to herself about double standards. Why was it so shocking for her to have tried to kill Goku and so completely weird for Krillin to have never had a go? Honestly! These boys were so... male! She went back to the barbecue to distribute the next round of food and set another batch on to cook.

Suddenly Vegeta's head whipped to look skyward. "I-Impossible!"

He breathed the word in a whisper, his face pale, his eyes wide. He stood from the table, tense and ready.

Bulma knew that look. She knew that stance. She'd seen a martial artist do just exactly that before. Far too many times. Something was coming. Something bad. Bad enough to freak **_Vegeta..._**

"Hey, what's the matter guys?" Her gut sank into a terrified chill.

Vegeta paused before whispering the one word she least wanted to hear. "...Frieza."

Krillin joined him to get confirmation. He looked up at the same point in the sky. His face and stance soon matched the saiyans. "Yup. That's Frieza alright."

"Frieza?" Bulma's mind raced.

_/STUPID **STUPID GOKU!** WHERE **IS** HE?!/  
><em>

Frieza. Frieza was nearby. Frieza, the guy who blows up planets. Frieza, the guy you needed a **super saiyan** to...

Super saiyan?

Wait... Maybe... maybe they didn't need Goku... Maybe they just needed a...

She looked at Vegeta. They just needed a super saiyan!

Super saiyan... Even if he wasn't one already, she knew the formula.

_/Take one saiyan./_ She looked at Vegeta. _/Check/_

_/Train him at 100 times gravity,/_ She glanced over her shoulder at the crashed spaceship, /_Check._/

_/Add an epic battle with Frieza./_ She glanced at the sky.

"Wow. Is he on his way here?"

"He sure is." Krillin replied fearfully. "And he's moving fast!"

_/Check. And congratulations. One super saiyan!/_ She looked at the spatula in her hand in awe, then at Vegeta with a mixture of hope and disbelief. Wow, an hour ago she had thought this guy had the worst timing ever and was the greatest threat to their planet. Now, he officially had the best timing in the universe and was their greatest hope for survival.

Welcome to the wonderful world of living with saiyans!

Of course, it was likely the planet would still blow up... "Well, there goes the neighbourhood." She said casually, that was what dragon balls were for. "Do we have time to finish lunch?"

"Lunch?!" Yamcha yelled. "BULMA How can you be thinking of **lunch?!** Frieza's coming! He's on his way right now!"

"Yeah, I **got** that Yamcha!" She shot back. "But if Frieza's coming then it's about to go down. And if Earth's going to stand any chance at all, then we're going to need Vegeta, and I for one want him at full power, which for a saiyan means full stomach, right? So I'll ask again. Do we have time to finish lunch or not?!"

Yamcha froze up, too sick with fear to answer.

"We have time." Vegeta responded, calmly moving back to the table. "But make it quick, woman."

"Got it!" Bulma turned up the heat and arranged all the remaining food on the hotplate.

She listened in as Krillin offered to get Gohan, and help out. Not that it was likely they'd need him, but the more the merrier.

Yamcha stayed, purely to freak out. He and Vegeta started to get on each other's nerves.

_/Oh great. That's JUST what we need. We've already asked him to go face his old boss in a pink shirt. Do you really think now's the best time to tick him off even more? Smart move Yamcha.../_

She calmly got between them and attempted to butter up the soon-to-be super saiyan. "Hey Vegeta? Do you want extra barbecue sauce on your spare ribs?"

A few minutes later Vegeta was away with Yamcha trailing after him. Bulma thought a moment, then ran to her room and grabbed a hoverplane capsule to follow them in. She tossed a spaceship capsule in her pocket as an afterthought.

"Bulma! Where are you going?" Puar exclaimed as he watched her jump inside the cockpit.

"Hey Puar, come on!" She called. "Let's go cheer the guys on!"

"What?! But Bulma, won't we just be in their way?" He asked nervously.

"Nah." She waved her hand dismissively as she fired up the ignition. "They've got Vegeta there. He should be **more** than a match for that Frieza guy. But I'll bet without Goku around to smile that goofy grin and get everyone excited about the fight, those guys'll be dragging their feet all down in the dumps like it's the end of the world. So hurry up! You coming or not?"

Puar pulled a determined face and floated inside.

"Ok, here we go!" She lifted off and flew to follow them.

Bulma gritted her teeth as she followed the direction Vegeta had flown. She would NOT watch the people she loved dying from the comfort of a living room while she sat around crying and being useless.

She had done that once.

Never again.

And it wasn't like she'd be in the way in a battle this size. No matter where on Earth she stood, there was a chance of being hit by a stray blast. Plus, Vegeta would need a ship to escape in if the planet blew up and she still needed to remind whoever fought first to call Goku from King Kai's.

"Ok Puar." She said as she spotted where the boys had landed. "Remember, we're taking over for Goku out there. We gotta be pumped! No fear! You got it?"

"Right!" Puar said, balling his paws up like little fists.

She brought the plane in for her usual flawless landing and jumped out.

"Yamcha! Yamcha!" Puar shot over to him to give him a big hug. Not quite what Bulma had in mind, but the little guy was trying his best.

"Bulma!" Yamcha yelled in shock on seeing her. "What are you doing here?!"

"I came to see the action!" She said with a grin, trying to blast excitement from every pore. She looked around. As she'd thought. The place looked like a funeral! They had all gathered around Vegeta, waiting for him to direct the fight, they trusted his strength and experience. But though he had Goku's power he lacked that contagious enthusiasm necessary to pump up the team.

She got right to work, starting with Yamcha.

"But Frieza!" Yamcha protested. "Do you know what he'll DO to you if he finds you here?"

"Yeah, yeah." She said dismissively as she puffed the hoverplane back into its capsule, "But if you lose, he'll just blow up the planet, so what's the point in hiding? I never even got to see Frieza on Namek."

She grinned excitedly. "I wanna at least see his face before he blows us up! I hear he's kinda cute."

Yamcha didn't take the bait. Ok, so making her boyfriend jealous by implying she might be interested in a sadistic alien warlord she'd never seen was a long shot.

But hey, she was new at this! There was no way she could be as good at it as Goku on her first try.

Yamcha continued to protest, but Bulma didn't quit. She smiled, she countered, she encouraged. And after a short while she felt the others starting to cheer up, just a little. One by one they began to join in. Pretty soon they were all together, insisting to Yamcha that this battle was winnable.

The terrible ship flew overhead and Bulma's facade cracked momentarily, she huddled a second in a frightened ball, clinging to Puar like a safety blanket, but as soon as the ship was out of sight she collected herself, glancing around to ensure no one had seen. It looked like she was okay.

She watched Vegeta step forward and take command. All the Z Fighters instantly fell into line behind him.

This was working.

This was actually working!

She beamed. She and Vegeta made a pretty great team! Between them, they almost made one Goku. Vegeta had Goku's strength and leadership, and with practice she could become his joy and excitement. Bulma felt the most wonderful wave of 'usefulness'. She was FINALLY making a difference, even if it was a small one.

Yamcha continued to freak the whole way, even pausing and threatening to run at several points, but Bulma knew he wouldn't bail so long as she was watching. She insisted on following all the way into the fight. They needed to stand together behind Vegeta. He needed to know they had his back.

And then... it was over.

A weird kid with a sword sliced and diced Freiza and his goons like he was hosting a cooking show!

Once he had finished the attackers he turned and looked straight at them. She watched all the fighters, even Vegeta, freeze up in expectation, but the kid just calmly invited them over.

The boys began to debate. All wanted to go but Yamcha.

"I don't trust him!" Yamcha said. "No way!"

"You don't trust **me** either!" She countered, dragging up their endless ongoing fight. "I say we go!"

One by one they flew after the kid. Once she got close enough she saw he had his hair done to match her father's and a Capsule Corp jacket! Maybe he was an employee? But he looked like he was in high school...

He puffed open a capsule minibar fridge and invited them to grab a can. Bulma watched him reaching for one of the beers before shooting a little guilty glance at her and redirecting his hand towards a soda. She smiled and grabbed the beer can for herself. That was sweet of him to leave it for her.

She decided to take the slight display of interest and work with it, but the kid was a vault. In fact the more she tried to flirt information out of him, the more he locked up and looked uncomfortable. It was like he found the very idea of her flirting with him... very, very disturbing.

Eventually she gave up, walking away with the remnants of her wounded pride. Okay, so the kid was a teenager and she was... over 29. But she still regularly saw PLENTY of teenage guys checking her out! She decided he must not be into girls.

She went to sit by Krillin while they waited.

She watched as Vegeta and the boy exchanged a few words.

She looked at the boy.

Then at Vegeta.

Then back at the boy.

Same jaw. Same build. Same brow line. Same species.

She grinned, figuring it out. Vegeta was a soldier. Soldiers... got around. Sometimes they went to bars. Sometimes they met girls. And sometimes those girls...

She held in a giggle. No wonder he'd gone so **berzerk** against the idea of that boy having 'saiyan blood'! Oh wow! She pitied the poor idiot who'd gotten herself knocked up by a saiyan! From what she'd seen they weren't the 'settling down' and 'taking responsibility' types.

She shot a leer at Vegeta. Gosh, that was one heck of a resemblance... but could the kid really be his? Judging by the age gap Vegeta must have been just a teenager! Well, she could understand the girl's perspective. Vegeta was probably a pretty hot teen back in the day. All buff and brawny like Yamcha had been. The girls were probably all over him. In fact most of the saiyans she had seen had a certain rugged appeal. Bulma had a feeling there was a good chance there were kids up and down the galaxy wandering around with saiyan features.

She decided to share the theory with Krillin. "Hey, is it me, or do those two kind of... look alike?" She asked mischievously.

"Well... Now that you mention it, I can kinda see a resemblance." Krillin replied with surprise. "Just in looks. But their personalities are complete opposites. That guy seems pretty nice, but Vegeta has the personality of a stump."

Bulma got irritated, feeling like she was running a kinder garden. Couldn't they just be nice to Vegeta? Poor guy had been willing to fight Frieza for them less than half an hour ago! She stood up for the prince, but Krillin had already made up his mind. In fact she suspected he'd flipped on the Prince the very second he heard Goku's return announced. Bulma huffed and ended the conversation, her mood having been completely spoiled.

Goku landed and he and the boy talked a bit, then the boy left and Piccolo related the bullet points.

Three years.

Two androids.

Total destruction.

Bulma jumped in. "We'll just use the dragon balls to find him, then stop him before he can create the androids!"

"Don't be a fool, woman! We don't have time for something like that!" Vegeta shot.

_/Don't have... WHAT?! We have three YEARS!/ _Bulma thought._ /That's TRIPLE the amount of time we need. Enough time to make THREE wishes if we start now. FIFTEEN wishes if we use both sets of dragon balls!/_

She decided it was beneath her to argue with someone that bad at math and turned her attention to Goku. Goku instantly responded with the blatant, honest truth.

He wanted to fight androids.

She argued, pointing out the various reasons they were both idiots, but they already knew they were idiots. A great big enemy was coming to beat them up and enslave the Earth. Nothing she could say would make that sound like it wasn't the best news ever.

Finally she gave in. "rrrRRh! FINE!" She turned her back to them. "But don't come crying to me when we're all enslaved by androids!"

She listened as they changed the subject.

Vegeta spoke up to join the conversation. Her eyes whipped to him, barely concealing her astonishment. He NEVER joined a conversation!

"Tell me, Kakarot, where did you get that absurd outfit?" He asked with a smirk.

"Oh this?" Goku looked down with his usual open smile. "This is the latest fashion on Yardrat. I thought it was pretty nice! At least it's not PINK!"

Vegeta pulled back, feeling the laughter in everyone's eyes and Bulma felt another burst of anger at her friends. Did they have ANY idea how hard that must have been for him? He stayed long enough to see Goku's new technique, then left.

The _second_ Vegeta left, Goku turned to Piccolo. "Hey, I'm gonna need a training partner! What d'ya say?"

Bulma fumed. Did Goku do that on purpose? No... Goku wouldn't... would he? But wasn't Vegeta like, ten times stronger than Piccolo? He'd be a WAY better training partner. Especially after he learned that 'super saiyan' technique. Even if he didn't already know it, Goku could probably teach it to him in less than a day...

Once Piccolo accepted, Goku immediately extended the invitation to the rest of the group, each of whom bowed out for various reasons.

Bulma stood aghast. He HAD timed that on purpose! He specifically waited for Vegeta to leave before organizing the training teams. And what's more they all seemed totally fine with it! These boys... Why were they shutting Vegeta out like this?! Minutes ago they had laughed with him, even stood behind him! But now it was like they were embarrassed to even admit they _considered_ adding Vegeta. It seemed as if they'd been caught cheating on Goku or something. Like there was only room for one saiyan, and now that Goku was back, Vegeta was out.

She debated. Should she point out how unfair they were being? Should she **force** Goku to train with him?

No.

Vegeta would HATE that if he found out. There was nothing she could do.

She was useless again.

Goku turned to wave goodbye. "See ya in three years! Oh and... Have a healthy baby Bulma!"

He flew off, leaving Bulma staring blankly after him. _ /What?/_

"Well," Krillin remarked. "That was weird. Are you... gonna be a mom, Bulma?"

"What?! No WAY!" She responded emphatically.

"Well then... what d'ya suppose he meant by that?" Krillin asked in confusion.

"Maybe..." Yamcha blushed brightly, rubbing at his head. "Maybe he meant that it was time for us to... you know... settle down and start a family." He looked at her.

Bulma's insides froze. She looked back at her boyfriend with a blank, wide eyed stare.

"U-uuUh..." At seeing her expression Yamcha instantly retracted the idea, brushing it off as a lame joke. "Heheheh... I mean... It's not like you're getting any younger!"

She played along, but she knew from the pain behind his eyes.

He hadn't been joking.

Krillin bid them farewell and Bulma stood quietly, lost in thought. After a moment's pause, Yamcha realized she would likely need a while before she would be ready to pilot herself home. He gently took hold of her and lifted into the air silently.

She grasped her arms instinctively around his neck and looked at him.

_Really_ looked at him.

Handsome. Successful. Superhero. Currently flying her home after having just asked her to marry him. She tucked her head against his neck as her mind and heart raced like never before. But her heart wasn't racing with love, or with joy, or even with flattery. Her heart raced with pure, icy terror as her ears echoed with the life altering question he had just asked.

The time had come.

He wanted to marry her.

She watched the treetops passing beneath her feet as her hands shook._ /Wow... And here I thought Frieza was the scariest thing that would happen to me today./_

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><p><strong>Please review! <strong>

**And don't forget to 'Follow' so you know when there's a chapter release! See you all soon. **


	4. Chapter 3A

**REMINDER: This is a story of perspectives, his and hers, the counterpart story is already complete. You don't NEED to read that other story to get this one, but if you want to know the complete story from VEGETA'S perspective, just go to my other fic. 'Perspective (his)' under my account.**

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><p>Bulma watched her house come into view and started to feel the urgency of the next few minutes. Neither she, nor her boyfriend, had said a single word the entire way home. The silence was deafening and ominous.<p>

Well, what did she expect? The guy had held out the full package deal. Marriage, kids, all of it. And she had just stared at him in shock like he'd suggested they both shave their heads! Did she think they could just 'be normal' after that?!

But that was what she wanted. She wanted 'normal'! Couldn't they just go back to the way they always were? The ground got closer and her heart started to scream at her head, letting her know that if she didn't say SOMETHING in the next few minutes she and Yamcha were almost certainly finished.

Her mouth opened and shut, begging for words, any words, but her mind had nothing. What could she say? What could either of them say after that?

Her feet touched the ground and a cold space formed between them as he released her and turned to go.

"...See ya." He lifted off.

"T-Tonight!" She burst forth, borrowing his words to start her sentence. "I'll see you tonight, right? You were pretty amazing out there, babe. Let me take you out. We'll hit the strip! You deserve a night on the town with a hot date!"

Yamcha didn't meet her eye. "I'm kinda tired-"

"Better!" She jumped in. "A quiet night at yours. You, me, and a couple beers. You nearly saved the world today! As a citizen of this planet, I deserve the right to show my appreciation. And I've got a few ideas on how that you just might like."

He hesitated, knowing the hot night her tone was implying.

She didn't give him a chance to answer. "Let me finish up a few things here and pick me up around six? We can grab something easy on the way and eat at yours."

Yamcha sighed. "See you then." He gave a slight wave and flew in the direction of his car.

Bulma watched until his car disappeared from view, then looked down at herself. Why had his proposal been such a shock?

She started to wander aimlessly along the grass. After all, she had told herself she had gotten serious about him. She had thought she was 'all in'. And it had seemed like he was too. Where did she _think_ they were heading? And yet every time she thought of it, it felt fake. It felt like he had just been saying it in a knee jerk reaction to nearly dying that day.

But why did she think that? Wasn't thinking like that cruel to both of them? Why was it so _impossible_ to believe Yamcha might really want to marry her? And why did the very thought fill her with chills instead of flutters? Shouldn't she be skipping around, bragging to her friends? Shouldn't this be the best thing in the world?

She looked up to see she was in her lab. The part of Capsule Corp's R&D building she had claimed for her personal use. She supposed she must have wandered there while she was lost in thought. Somehow the room had become a sort of sanctuary over the years. A place she wouldn't be disturbed.

She walked over to a drawer and collected out the capsule containing Yamcha's next birthday present. She could come up with something else for his birthday later. Tonight was more important.

A glance about the room revealed the analysis on Vegeta's armor and bodysuit was complete. Bulma ambled over to look at the data, grateful for the promise of something she could understand.

She read over the screen and pursed her lips. Sure enough, the material was alien. And by the look of things, unique. The whole thing was made of some sort of crystalline fibre with the properties of a non-newtonian fluid. As impressive as it was frustrating. Nothing on Earth would be able to act as a substitute. Several compounds not found on Earth would be required if she wanted to synthesize the needed molecules for more fibers. She looked at the suit, crumpled on the workbench where she'd tossed it.

All she really needed was the base ingredients... where would she find more?

She thought back... Those guys the saiyan kid sliced up had all been wearing all sorts of similar armor. The bodies should have enough viable fabric on them...

_/Ugh... Great. Those guys have been out in the sun for hours already.../_ She pictured the stinky, fly ridden scene as the desert began to claim them. Not her idea of a fun retrieval. Besides, surely there were spare suits somewhere?

Actually... Now that she thought of it, Frieza came in a ship. A big one. And she didn't see it get blown up. Was it still out there?

Oh, she needed to get that thing fast. Forget the armor, that ship was packed with off world tech and weaponry. And Bulma just **knew** what sort of morons the government would assign to 'study' it. In fact, she could literally name each and every one of said morons, and give an estimate in how many times each of them had made a move on her at some or other symposium. Those guys would probably end up destroying half the ship before they even worked out how to open the door!

Although, fun as it was to insult those government creeps, opening the door might not be all that easy...

She remembered the nightmare she had gone through trying to work Piccolo's ship, and it wasn't even locked. Something told her a guy with as many enemies as Frieza probably had some sort of security installed on his ride, and she was willing to bet it wasn't something she should play around with.

She started to think...

Well, first priority was just to get that thing out of sight where the government couldn't blow themselves up messing with it. She quickly phoned through to the underground hangers to have one cleared. She could worry about disarming it later. But the ship was half way around the planet and massive! And she needed to get it home fast, under the radar, before the satellites picked it up.

Maybe one of the guys could help? Who was strong enough to carry something that big? Now wasn't the best time to call up Yamcha for a favor... She didn't think Krillin could...

**"That's what I WAAANT!" **

**#*BOOM!*#**

Bulma was snapped out of her thoughts by a loud explosion down the hall.

_/Oh no... No-No-No! That came straight from dad's office!/_ She quickly ran to check for survivors.

She saw a man in a garish pink shirt, standing in the brand new 'open plan' office belonging to her father, amidst the sizzling remnants of the wall behind him. She felt the wave of relief wash over her.

It was just Vegeta.

The saiyan seemed to be having a disagreement with her father and had decided to add a few snazzy explosions to make his voice heard. He had been careful to direct the blast away from her father, he didn't want to hurt him, he just wanted to get his attention. The saiyan equivalent of slamming your fist on the desk, no doubt. But wow, whatever he wanted... he really, really wanted.

As she came closer she heard her father's voice rapidly babbling at the angry saiyan.

"... know what you're asking for! At three hundred times gravity your body would feel like it weighs eighteen tonnes! I just don't think it's possible for even **you** to-"

_/He wants a gravity upgrade?/_ She looked in confusion between them. It was a simple enough request, what was the problem?

As she listened in her mind slowly registered her father's argument. He was worried about Vegeta pushing himself too hard. She smiled. Her father could be so sweet sometimes. But they really didn't have time for sweet right then. In three years the world would end unless this guy was strong enough to stop it.

_/I guess nobody's told dad about the androids yet./_

"Enough old man!" Vegeta finally interrupted, cutting off the doctor's rapid, circular protests. "Can you do it or not?!".

Bulma watched her father hesitate.

"I'll do it." She offered, leaning against the now unnecessary doorframe.

Vegeta quickly turned to face her.

"You just want 300G's right?" She asked, smiling at him. "No problem. You don't mind if I do it, do you dad?"

Dr Brief heaved a sigh of relief, grateful to have the decision taken from him. "No! Not at all!"

"Then it's settled! It'll take me a few hours to set it up." She watched Vegeta settle down with a background annoyance, resigning himself to the idea of a few hours with nothing to do.

Wait, actually...

"That should be just enough time for you to do something for me!" She watched as his eyes locked in on hers curiously, though he remained silent as always.

"I just happen to have the job for you, cutie pie!" She looked him over, estimating the ease with which he could lift the massive ship. "A perfect warm up, for that hot bod."

Bulma watched his reaction to the complement and instantly beamed with delight. _/Oh! He's making the face!/_

She paused a moment to enjoy it. Bulma loved it when he did that! That adorable grumpy expression he had pulled to mask his bashfulness the first time she had said he was 'kinda cute'. Gosh, where was a camera when you needed one?! How could you not like a guy with an expression like that?! Didn't the other guys get that Vegeta wasn't rude, he was just incredibly shy?

Although, Bulma had to admit, it was sort of fun to be the only one who had worked it out and claimed teasing rights. It made him feel like a cute little nephew she needed to torture for his own good.

"Spit it out, woman." He pressed, trying to look scary again. "What do you want?"

_/Ugh! We're back to the servant thing again?!/_

"This 'WOMAN' has a name! BULMA!" She reminded. She sighed. "Well, I suppose I shouldn't expect too much of your memory. You're royalty after all, probably a bit inbred. I want Frieza's ship."

Vegeta hesitated. "What? What do you want with his vessel?"

She decided it was best Vegeta didn't know he was being asked to haul a giant, heavily armed, possibly booby-trapped spaceship half way around the planet for a girl who had absolutely no idea what to do with it, and instead opted for

"That's a secret!" She winked at him. "But for my guys to transport something that big over that distance would take days and cost a fortune! I figure a big, tough spaceman like you can do it in a few hours."

He stood in silent agreement.

She dug in her pocket for her keys, complete with her own, all access microchip. "There's some hangers underground around back. B12 is being cleared as we speak. Once it's empty, it should fit the ship."

She passed the keys to him and turned to leave. "Careful not to scratch the paint job!"

Bulma called in a crew of droids to move the ship to a better spot, then got to work re-wiring. Sure enough, her father had been right. The ship's fuel was completely depleted. No wonder Vegeta had to make a crash landing. She smiled, slightly impressed that he'd managed to line it up so perfectly. He'd probably been using his own energy attacks as thrusters for the final stretch of the journey. Without a single functioning computer to calculate the flight path, he had managed to put the ship down right on the front lawn. Within a few feet of where it started.

_/Show off./_ She giggled.

She decided to call a crew in to install an electricity feed direct from the city grid rather than waste fuel. After all, the ship was likely to be staying put for the next three years. Meanwhile she removed the engines and used the space to beef up the maximum gravity.

She moved out as the crew finished hauling away the unneeded parts.

"Bulma dear?" Her father appeared in the doorway of the house.

"Hey Dad, decided to pitch in after all?" She smiled at him.

"Actually, I was a little concerned. Are you certain you want to give Vegeta such a powerful device?" He shook his head pensively. "I just worry for the man. Vegeta's a proud fellow. If he pushes too hard, he may do himself harm. Three hundred times gravity could crush even the strongest of men to a pancake!"

Bulma laughed. "Gosh dad, you worry too much. Vegeta's a saiyan! They're practically indestructible, believe me. I've watched Goku take hits that would have blown up an entire planet. Vegeta will be just fine."

"They're not so indestructible as you might think, dear." He replied. "Goku needed two of those astonishing senzu beans over his time in 100G's. I heard him say if not for those beans, he would most certainly have died."

"Okay, okay. Fine." Bulma smiled. She had a strong suspicion it was Goku's intense training, rather than the gravity that had nearly killed him, but she could see her father wasn't going to drop the subject unless she gave him something. "I'll install a safety, just in case. How about this. If he's not able to confirm he's still on his feet after say... two minutes, the whole thing will shut down. Happy?"

"Oh! What a clever idea. Yes, that should do the trick nicely." Her father smiled, and tossed his cigarette to replace it with a fresh one. "Well then, I'll leave everything to you."

He turned and left. Bulma folded her arms, mildly irritated that he hadn't offered to help. She glanced at the time to see it was already past four o'clock and Yamcha would be coming at six. Her mind descended into renewed fears for the two of them. Just how exactly was she supposed to deal with this? Guys weren't like machines. You couldn't just shut them down and reprogram them when they did something unexpected. And besides, what was so unexpected? Her mind started to run in circles again, questioning their relationship for the millionth time. She checked over the site. The rest of the work could probable be wrapped up in under twenty minutes if she got the a.i. droids to help out. She decided to take a break and headed in the direction of her mother.

If anyone knew how to sort out affairs of the heart, it was Mrs Brief. The woman was borderline psychic when it came to relationships. Probably how she had managed to go from a dancer in a cheap nightclub to the wife of one of the wealthiest, most powerful businessmen on the planet. How Bulma wished she had her mother's skill for lovie-dovey stuff, but instead she had always taken after her father more.

"Hey Mom? You got a minute?"

"Oh, sweetums!" Mrs Brief looked up from her gardening. "You know I always have time for you!"

Bulma smiled.

"Oh dear! What's'a matter?" Her mother exclaimed in concern, having instantly seen through the facade. "Now you just stay right there! I'll go get us some tea and cakes from the bakery and we'll talk it all over!"

She dashed off.

Bulma sighed as she watched her mother dash in the opposite direction, completely focused on the absolute necessity of cake before a single word might be said. She turned back to finish the gravity upgrade while she waited. The bakery would probably take at least a half hour round trip. Well, her mother might be a little loopy, but heck, the woman was lucky to have salvaged what mental faculties she had considering the amount of wild partying she had done in her youth as part of a generation fascinated with mind altering substances.

Forty-five minutes later she and her mother sat a short distance from the ship, supervising as the last of the crews cleared up. Before them was an afternoon tea table laden with fancy delicacies. Bulma picked absently at the icing on the before her.

"Now dear, you just tell me all about what's on your mind." Her mother said as she poured the tea. "Is Yamcha making you gloomy again?"

"No!" Bulma exclaimed, then paused. "... I mean... I... AAAGH! I don't know!"

Her mother sipped her tea and waited.

"... Yamcha..." Bulma gathered her thoughts and finally said it. "Yamcha asked me to marry him."

"Oh my goodness!" Mrs Brief placed her hand to her cheek. "How exciting!"

"That's just it." Bulma said, looking down. "It wasn't exciting at all. I keep feeling like he just said it because Goku said it."

"Oh my! Goku Asked you to marry him as well?" She looked sadly at her teacup. "Oh dear... I had heard he and ChiChi were having problems but I had no idea they had drifted so far apart..."

**"WHAT?!"** Bulma shot from her chair. **"No!** Mom, Goku did NOT ask me to marry him! He just said to have a healthy baby!"

"He wants to have a baby with you? How very modern!" She smiled excitedly. "Are he and ChiChi having trouble making a little brother for Goha-"

"NO!" Bulma tossed her teaspoon on her plate.

"He wasn't **ASKING** me! He just said it! None of us knew why he said it. He was saying goodbye, like normal, and then suddenly he turned to me and told me to have a healthy baby and flew off. I dunno, maybe he thought I was pregnant or something..." Bulma pulled her teaspoon from her cake and made a quiet note to go on a diet.

"You know Goku." She continued. "He has a way of saying whatever pops into his head. Anyway, after he said that, Yamcha sort of ran with it. He looked at me and... Well he didn't really ask either... He just sort of... threw the idea out there. He looked at me and said maybe it was time for us to settle down and start a family."

"Oh, I see." Her mother nodded cheerfully. "And?"

"And... " Bulma looked down. "I didn't know what to say. I froze up. I keep thinking I should have been happy, but instead all I could think of were reasons it was a silly question or why I shouldn't take him seriously, like maybe he was just joking, or maybe he was just saying it because he was scared."

"Was Yamcha scared?" Her mother asked. "Were you having one of your little tiffs?"

"No, mom, he wasn't scared of **me!** He was scared of this guy he was going to fight. He was the same guy the Nameks moved here to get away from, and he was crazy strong." Bulma said cautiously. "Yamcha never actually fought him. This other really nice guy showed up and took him down before we even saw his face. It was all over pretty fast, but for a while there Yamcha was really scared he might die today. And I keep wondering if maybe he was just in a panic and said something he didn't mean."

"Or maybe when he thought he was gonna die he started to think about all the things he wanted to do that he never did." Her mother said as her base intelligence began to leak through. "Ya' father did that once, when the doctors found something in his lungs. He came up with one of his inventions and fixed himself up before it got serious, but for a while there he went just crazy trying to do everything he had always wanted to do before he died."

Bulma thought on that. She remembered how crazy her dad had gone, trying to teach her everything about running the company all at once. Trying to put every passing idea for any invention down on paper before it was too late. Had Yamcha been that scared? Had he seen his life about to end and realized what he really wanted? And had what he wanted... been her?

Her heart skipped.

"No." She shook her head. "No way, it's not that. If he was thinking like that he wouldn't have made that crack about needing to get started since I'm _apparently_ getting old! Urrrgh! Can you believe him?!"

"Well sweetie, you know you are ... *over thirty*." Mrs Brief finished the sentence in a whisper like it was a carefully guarded secret. "If you want kids, you can't put it off for much longer."

Bulma's teaspoon bent sideways in her hand as she gripped it, annoyed with the coldness of the fact.

"Oh!" Mrs Brief jumped up. "Bulma dear, look who's back!"

Bulma glanced over to see her mother offering Vegeta a cupcake and gratefully diverted her attention to him. "How'd you go?"

"It's done." He replied.

"Great!" She smiled. "I knew I could count on you. You big, strong man you!"

Vegeta rewarded her complement with the usual adorable grouchy expression.

She couldn't help but smile. Gosh, she hadn't thought anyone could be cuter than Goku, but Vegeta was rapidly catching him up. Maybe it was just the whole species? Based on what she'd seen the saiyans were scary at first, but scratch the surface and you had yourself a whole race of eternal little boys. Messy hair, fluffy tails and skinned knees, all of them scurrying around the galaxy looking for someone to play with in their favorite game: Fight Me!

It was just so sad that Frieza had twisted their wonderful species into something cruel, but it was comforting to help play a part in rehabilitating at least one.

"Ship's all done" She continued. "I just removed the engines, wired it into the mains power and upped the maximum gravity. Since it can't fly anymore it seems silly to call it a ship. I call it the Gravity Room. GR for short. It'll go as high as 200G's-"

"THE DEAL WAS 300G'S!" Vegeta interrupted.

"Oh, calm down!" She replied, not appreciating being cut off. " Gosh, I know you're royalty, but are you sure you're not a queen? Because you ACT like a drama queen!"

Vegeta turned to the Capsule Corp buildings, getting ready to fly off and shout at her father again.

"I need parts before I can go that high." She said, catching his attention before he could make another wall disappear. "Maybe YOUR body can handle 300G's, but the ship's body can't. It would only be seconds before the ceiling collapsed in on you!"

Vegeta stopped and looked back at her, seeming to finally remember she actually DID know what she was doing.

"I never said I would get you 300G's today," She continued. "I said I would 'set it up', and I did. The re-wiring's done, and the parts are on order, but they'll take a few days to come in. Meanwhile you can work your way up to 200G's. It's the best I can do on short notice."

He immediately turned without a word and stormed off in the direction of the GR.

"You're WELCOME!" She shouted after him, but he didn't turn around.

"Gosh, that ungrateful royal jerk!" She said to her mother loud enough for him to hear."Is the word 'Thanks' even in his vocabulary?! Do you know what he called me this morning? Servant woman! Honestly, who even has servants these days? I think he must've been born with a silver spoon up his butt!"

She glanced over to see if he would react, but he had already shut the GR door behind him. She groaned. Well, manners 1.01 would have to wait until another day.

"Now, where were we..." Her mother placed a finger against her cheek, having quite literally forgotten what they were talking about.

"You were just telling me that I'm getting old." Bulma grumbled.

"Oh yes!" Mrs Brief clapped her hands together. "It's gettin' to that time when a girl's gotta ask herself the big questions."

Bulma huffed and folded her arms disliking the concept, but allowing it.

"Do you want kids someday?" Her mother asked in a cautiously non judgmental tone.

"Sure." Bulma said, slightly surprised with how easy she had found that 'big' question. "Yeah, I guess I do."

"Well, do you think you'd like Yamcha to be the daddy?" Mrs Brief asked.

Bulma felt her face soften with the image that thought brought. She could just picture him doting on them. Getting bossed about by a spoiled little 'daddy's girl' or playing baseball with a scruffy little boy that worshipped him.

"Yamcha would make an amazing father..." She said affectionately.

"So...?" Her mother pressed. "Why not give it a try?"

Bulma thought on that a moment, staring at her teacup. She had to admit, her mother had a way of cutting down to the real issue. But that was one hell of a 'big' question...

Her mother took the teacup from before her and filled it again, then quietly replaced her destroyed teaspoon with a fresh one.

Bulma lookeed at the cup and thought.

And thought.

She didn't know how long she thought, but when she took another sip, the tea was cold.

She kept coming back to that image of him, dead after the saibaman killed him. She knew for sure, she didn't want to lose him... but...

"What's'a matter?" Her mother finally prodded.

"I love Yamchha." She started. "But every time I think of marrying him I get this feeling like we're not ready. Like there's something... hidden... that'll break us up."

"Do ya think Yamcha's hidin' something?" Mrs Brief asked. "He's been awful jealous lately."

"Huh?" Bulma looked up. "What's that got to do with it?"

"Well, sometimes a man gets jealous because he's just jealous, and sometimes it's because he's been naughty."

"What?" Bulma listened curiously.

"Oh yes, dear." Her mother continued. "If he's been naughty he might start feeling guilty. And then, he might start trying to make whatever he did okay by trying to find reasons why you were just as naughty as him. That way if he gets caught, he can say 'We've both been just as bad as each other, so let's forget about it like it never happened!"

Bulma thought on that, filling with a new, powerful suspicion, but eventually she shook her head.

"No. I don't think that's it. Yamcha's just the jealous type." _/Same as me./_ She added quietly. "It wouldn't be that. I guess it's a little tough to admit it, but Yamcha's ... great. He's the perfect boyfriend. That's what makes him so annoying!"

"Well, if Yamcha's not hiding anything..." Mrs Briefs said. "That just leaves you. Is there something about you that he doesn't know?"

Bulma thought on that a moment.

"Oh! Mr Vegeta!" Mrs Brief smiled. "Did you change your mind? We've still got plenty of cupcakes! Let's see..."

"Did you inspect Frieza's vessel yet?"

"Huh?" Bulma was pulled from her thoughts and looked up to see a disheveled, sweaty mess of a saiyan with a big, pleased grin staring down at her. It looked like he liked his new machine.

She paused, trying to remember his question. Frieza's ship? How could she have inspected it? He had only just dropped it off and she had been sitting right there ever since. "Nope, not yet."

"I am familiar with the ship's systems. Accompany me. I will give you a guided tour." He finished.

Bulma stared up at him, still too distracted by thoughts of her and Yamcha to focus. It was good that he had thought about her words and decided to come back and say a belated 'Thank you' for the machine, but she really didn't have time for it right then.

"Uhh, Thanks anyway, but I'll have to take a rain check. Yamcha's going to be here any..." She spotted Yamcha's car in the distance. "Actually, that's him now." She started feeling the pressure of the next few hours.

"Thanks for waiting with me, mom. Hey, don't wait up, okay? Yamcha's had kind of a rough day, I think I'll stay over and keep him company tonight."

"No problem sweetie!" Mrs Brief replied.

"Later." She waved distractedly and walked over to the car.

_/Well, at least I've got something to distract him with./_ She thought, quietly double checking that the capsule containing his 'present' was still in her pocket. This was one gift she had full confidence in. She silently thanked Krillin for helping her develop it. One thing was certain, if Yamcha didn't instantly forget everything from that messed up day after seeing this, he wasn't a man.

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><p><strong>Please follow, it makes me happy and it let's you see when a new chapter comes out! See you next time :)<strong>


	5. Chapter 3B

**REMINDER: This is a story of perspectives, his and hers, the counterpart story is already complete. You don't NEED to read that other story to get this one, but if you want to know the complete story from VEGETA'S perspective, just go to my other fic. 'Perspective (his)' under my account.**

* * *

><p>Bulma watched Yamcha collect up the dishes from their awkward, near silent meal and toss them in the dishwasher, then stand there, lost in thought, just staring at the controls. She looked at his back a moment, the guilt creeping back.<p>

She had known he was upset, but gosh, she'd had no idea. He seemed to be getting worse and worse. He was genuinely messed up over what had happened that day. His whole posture, his walk, every word was filled with a thinly masked depression. He couldn't even meet her eye! He looked completely broken. Her heart ached to mend the pain for him, but she really, really didn't feel ready to talk about it yet.

Well, at least there was his present. If she couldn't fix the problem, she could at least distract him from it for a while.

"I got us something special to watch," She said.

Yamcha continued staring at the dishwasher.

"Yamcha?" She tried again.

He didn't respond. She watched him clenching his fists, sinking deeper inside himself.

Bulma stood and walked over to put her hand on his shoulder. "Yamcha?"

"Wha-?" He snapped back to the moment and met her eye briefly before quickly looking away again. "Oh... sorry babe. Guess I zoned out a bit."

"I said I got us something to watch. You go sit, I'll get us some drinks and meet you there." She nudged him towards the couch.

He obediently dragged himself over to it and flopped into his usual seat.

Bulma pulled a six pack of beer from the fridge and joined him. She puffed open the capsule to set an enormous television in front of his normal sized one. A small, gift-wrapped box appeared on the floor beside it.

"I was going to give this to you on your birthday, but you've earned it." She said, though she wasn't sure if he heard. She picked up the box and put it on his lap.

"Hmn." He replied distractedly as he stared through the gift wrapping with a distant expression, still trapped in memories of the day.

She pressed the remote. The air began to echo with tacky music as the screen filled with an image of a man in bed sandwiched tightly between two women. Yamcha finally looked up, half astonished as the title appeared: "The Magic Number"

"B... Babe...?" He looked at her uncertainly. "Did... uhm... you let Master Roshi borrow your TV?"

She smiled. "This is the right movie. Open your present."

He looked down and curiously unwrapped the gift to reveal a set of metallic cylinders. "Uhm..." He examined them hesitantly. "Thanks, babe, they look really ... uh ... cool."

"They are." She smiled seductively. "Put them on."

He tried to slide his arm in unsuccessfully. "They're a little small."

"Well then, you'd better put them on me instead." She replied, holding out her arms.

He slowly slid them up and locked them in place above her elbows. Bulma smiled and stood. She crossed her forearms to press on each opposing device simultaneously and activate the process, then felt the wave of exhaustion as her life energy was divided in two. She steadied herself as she became slightly dizzy, but it was really no worse than your average hangover. After blinking a few times to refocus her eyes she got her reward. Bulma looked down at an astonished, speechless Yamcha rapidly darting his eyes between her and ... her.

Bulma stood, quite literally, beside herself.

She smiled. "I heard the guys on your team talking about those two waitresses at the sports club."

"W... Waitresses?" He asked, still in shock to see his girlfriend duplicated before him.

"You know the ones I mean." Her counterpart added, she had decided they would try their best to take talking in turns. "Candy and Brandy?" She watched his expression register slight understanding, though he didn't dare admit it.

"I know you've probably been taking some heat over never... mixing it up with those two. Well, congratulations Mister. In return for your good behaviour, it's time for a little bit of bad behaviour." She smirked at him with her best seductress expression and walked to press front to front with herself in the sexy pose she had seen the girls in the movie assuming over and over. "Buckle in, Babe. Because tonight, you've gotta handle twins."

"Twins?..." He looked to see one Bulma drape her arms around the other's neck while she in turn linked her hands around the first's waist.

"Twins." She confirmed. "Oh, by the way, you owe Krillin a favor."

"...What?" Yamcha asked, still at a loss for words, though from the look of things his body was starting to catch on.

"Yeah." Her counterpart smiled. "You've got no idea how many times I had him do that multiform technique before I figured out how to replicate it. Buy him a drink sometime okay?"

His mouth quirked, then gradually took shape, spreading into that familiar half grin that belonged there as his eyes cleared of their distracted gaze and completely focused on what was before him.

"I'll buy him an entire bar!" He laughed. "Oh wow babe... Just... I mean... are you kidding me?! You actually managed to copy the multiform technique?"

Bulma maintained her sexy look as she filled with relief. Finally. He was back. "That's right hot boy. I thought you might like it."

"Like it?!" He darted his eyes over the two of them. "I... oh my gosh babe! And we're gonna... with you like that?!"

The Bulma's giggled as they took a position either side of him. She knew the multiform would do it.

"And now," She pressed the remote into his hand. "You can either watch this for... 'inspiration', or you could make a special request, or you could let us... surprise you."

Each Bulma slowly ran a hand up the inside of one of his thighs.

"A... aaAH!" His pelvis jerked slightly as his body responded. The Bulma's moved in closer, each twisting her body to gain a better angle for teasing their tongues along his skin as their hands travelled up under his shirt.

Yamcha's pants began straining to contain him as he half gasped, half chuckled through the reality of his situation. Bulma claimed his upper half while her counterpart jumped down to a position before him where she could better stimulate his lower half.

"Ahahah..aha-AAH!" His fingers gripped into the couch.

"We need a decision." She whispered against his ear.

"Uhhm.. AH! Uuh... s... surprise me! Definitely!"

"Perfect!" They chorused as they began pulling off his clothes.

A while later Bulma and her counterpart lay in the bedroom either side of a very, very happy Yamcha. He grinned at the ceiling in a contented daze. She and her counterpart shared a 'Mission accomplished' smile even as they each shifted uncomfortably against the usual dull ache persisting between their legs.

Bulma had never really seen the appeal of 'sex'. Oh, she liked some parts. Especially the buildup. The soft touches, the feel of her body wanting his and seeing him wanting her. But after that ... Yamcha's abilities just left her too far behind. She tried, she really had tried to get the hang of the actual 'sex' part, but she was just lousy at it. Yamcha on the other hand, he had that part down to an art.

Bulma had heard the songs, she had seen the movies, she knew what girls generally screamed when things started getting good. 'Yes! There! Faster! Faster! There! Harder! UAAH! FASTER! YES! YES!'

But she had never in her life EVER wanted to tell Yamcha to go 'harder', or 'faster'. Yamcha had power. He had **serious** power. She hadn't realized how much until that night as she had pulled back briefly to watch him with her duplicate. She had never watched them from the outside before, but when he'd really gotten going, her eyes hadn't even been able to see! It was just a blur. A gasping, pounding blur of rapid thrusts as the woman beneath failed miserably to keep up. And then a while later he had swapped positions and it was her turn to feel the familiar incredible speed and strength as he raced back and forth between her legs.

As usual, she made all the noises she 'should' make, and she did all the things she 'should' do, it wasn't really that hard. The little exclamations that came out on their own usually sounded about right as long as she tossed in an occasional 'Yes! OH! There!'. Simple. But she couldn't help feeling disappointed in herself. Here she had this amazing guy and she couldn't even appreciate him. Any normal girl should be screaming into the night with pleasure. This was exactly what every woman wanted, right? Incredible power, hard and fast and right between her legs. But Bulma's stupid body just didn't appreciate it at all. In fact at best she would describe it as like having a piece of construction equipment try to break her in half. Afterwards there was just a sore back raw thighs and a tender ache in her lower pelvis.

Not that it was all that bad. Her body was mostly recovered within a few minutes and... she looked down at him, affectionately brushing the hair from his forehead... there was a feeling when they were together like that... a closeness to him that felt wonderful and deep. She really enjoyed that. And sometimes there was something in the background when he moved just a certain way... something... kind of ticklish but... nice.

But mostly, it just hurt. She had quietly gone to see a doctor without mentioning anything to Yamcha years ago, but he'd said he couldn't see any problem. For some reason her body just... didn't like sex. But she couldn't bring herself to say anything to Yamcha.

Yamcha definitely liked sex. In fact it was quite possibly his favorite activity on the planet, but she knew he'd never ever do it again if he knew the effect on her end. And besides, how could she work out what she was doing wrong and get better at it unless she kept trying?

It wasn't like he wanted her every night either. Well, he probably did, but he was willing to settle for considerably less than the full encounter most nights. Over the years she'd gotten pretty darn good at... other methods for bringing him to the same end. When she and Yamcha had first started dating, it hadn't taken long before they wanted to do more than just cudle up in the back seat. Once they got into that sort of relationship, Bulma had soon worked out her condition wasn't going to go away and quickly made 'alternative' techniques a particular focus of study, much to his delight. And over the years she had gotten pretty good. In fact, she was perhaps a little too good at that stuff. Fifteen years later she didn't even bother with fancy flavours anymore, those things had **way** too many calories, given how fast she went through them. Plus, she worked better without them. And Yamcha didn't seem to mind at all. In fact, he had made it clear that her skill had grown to where, in his opinion, any of her alternative methods were a very, very acceptable substitute for the full experience. And so they had gotten in the habit of going that way for everyday 'relationship maintenance'. And on special occasions, or whenever she was feeling up to doing 'it' the old fashioned way, he never minded that she always teased him right to the very edge before letting him finally take his position, even though it meant he didn't get to spend very long showing off his incredible ability.

He really was such a sweetheart. She knew several girls who said their guy was always jumping straight on top without a single minute of buildup, but not Yamcha. He was just happy to be with her, no matter how.

She gazed at him, running her hand down his rippled front. "I love you."

"Love you too, babe." He smiled.

"No," She looked at him. "I mean... I really love you. I just wanna make sure you know that, right?"

"Huh?" He looked at her.

"I just... about what happened today." She finally worked up the nerve to say it and watched her counterpart shoot her a panicked expression, obviously not feeling ready on her side. Bulma continued anyway. "I don't want you to think it means I don't love you, because I do."

Yamcha' s contented expression vanished. His face filled with depression again as he remembered the day. "Oh hell, babe. Why'd you have to talk about that?"

He tried to roll to face away from her, but there was another her right there. He stood and walked to stare out the window, his posture slumped.

"Yamcha..." She looked at him. "We can't just not talk about it."

"Why not?!" He semi-shouted at the glass, then clenched his fists and lowered his head.

"It was just so out of the blue!" Her counterpart pitched in as they tried to explain.

"Exactly!" She agreed.

"Out of the blue?!" He turned to look at her. "Like that's an excuse? What was so unexpected anyway? I mean if it wasn't today it would have been some other day. It's not like we didn't know it was gonna happen at some point!"

"Yamcha..." She looked at him pleadingly. "Please, just don't read too much into it."

"You think the guys'll think like that?! ... GOSH!" He gripped the window frame, leaving finger dents in it. "Freezing up like that right in front of..."

Bulma lowered her head. She had forgotten Krillin had been watching. She bet Master Roshi knew about the flopped proposal by now too... The guys were a tight group. Gossip spread fast.

"Who do I train with now?" He turned angrily to her. "How am I supposed to look the other guys in the eye after that?! Huh?!"

"I..." She lowered her head, lost for words.

"Hey, don't take it out on her!" Her other half shouted. "You can't always expect things to go just how you'd like! Sometimes people freeze up! It happens!"

His face twisted back into that regretful, far off expression. "I know but..." He flopped on the end of the bed with his back to her. "I just never thought it would happen to me... I mean, since I got resurrected I thought I was doing pretty well."

"You were!" She jumped in. "I mean, you are! You're amazing, babe!"

"So then... why?" He looked to face her with eyes full of a desperate pain.

Bulma felt her heart breaking for him. "I... I don't know."

"I know I love you." Her counterpart offered, moving to sit beside him and wrap an arm around his back.

"I know, babe, but..." He looked down. "I gotta work this out somehow. I got my pride, you know? I can't just pretend like it didn't happen and hope that next time goes better. I gotta figure out what's wrong."

"Next time?" Bulma asked curiously, moving to sit on his other side. "There's gonna be a next time?"

"Duh!" He said, standing up. "There's no way I'm giving up. This is too important! All these years... my whole life! Everything I've ever dreamt of... No way! I want this too much. I'm not giving up. Not without a fight."

Bulma's breath caught. Everything he'd ever dreamt of? She looked at her other half to see her wearing an equally astonished, speechless blush.

"Oh wow, I... Yamcha..." Her counterpart added lost for words.

He turned to face them. "I know it might not be easy, but I'm just gonna keep at it until I figure out what the problem is."

"Oh gosh, Yamcha..." Bulma's heart raced, never having felt so totally in love with him as she was right then. How did she ever find such a perfect boyfriend?

He reached out and took one hand from each Bulma in each of his own, knelt down, and looked bravely into their eyes.

_/Oh... Oh wow he's... on one knee.../_ She unconsciously linked hands with the other Bulma beside her.

"I guess... now that I think of it... I can already see a few places I messed up today. I should've prepared better beforehand. Next time I'll definitely be totally ready." He smiled up at them with that 'Yamcha' smile. "And I'll get more serious too. No more goofing around. Don't worry babe, you just watch. Next time, I'll do things right. It'll be perfect. And there'll be no fear, not even a little. Count on it. I want this too much. This is the most important battle I'll ever fight!"

"Y... Yamcha..." He went a little blurry as her eyes welled up. He was... impossible. Wonderful. No, he was perfect! Totally incredibly perfect! What the heck was she thinking?! A guy like THIS wanted to marry her and she **hesitated?!**

Her heart raced faster and her hands started to shake again, but not with fear this time. Her whole body trembled with pure ecstatic love._ _/Oh **gosh** you idiot!_ Can't you see me going completely crazy over here?! I love you! I love you! Don't wait, just ask now! What's the hold up?! You're already on one knee and I'm already crying like a lunatic, just ask me! Either of me! BOTH of me, I don't care just ... Oh, oh** GOSH** HURRY **UP!**/_

"And when the time comes..." He said, looking between them as she squeezed tighter on the other Bulma's equally quivering hand. "... I'll be ready to crush those androids."

Bulma paused.

"... what?" She looked at him in complete confusion.

"... what?" Her counterpart echoed, equally confused.

"Yeah..." He released their hands, stood and looked out the window. "I've just gotta work out why I froze up today." He said determinedly.

"Wait... why _**YOU**_ froze up?" She asked.

"I can't afford to freak out like that again when the androids get here." He seemed to be lost in his own thoughts again.

**"WHAT?!"** The Bulmas dropped each other's hands and jumped from their position to stand, glaring at him.

"You mean to tell me THAT'S why you were so upset all this time?!" She asked.

"Huh?" Yamcha looked at her, half afraid, half confused. "Yeah... What did you think it was?"

"Because of... You know!" The other Bulma yelled. "Remember?! After Goku left?!"

"About how he thought you were pregnant?" Yamcha asked, inching slowly back from his two angry girlfriends."D-Don't worry babe, I know you take care of that stuff. I never thought you were pregnant."

"Wait... so you really were **joking?!"** Her counterpart yelled.

"Joking?" He looked back at her, slightly pale.

"About starting a family? About me getting old?! You were really **joking?!"** She shouted.

"Woah! Did you think I was serious?!" He jumped back further, wide eyed. "Woah, No No No! I'd never call you old, babe! You're young! Very, very young! I still can't believe they don't check your ID when we order a drink!"

Bulma glared at him. Sure enough, he had absolutely no idea what she'd been through that day.

"That is the LEAST funny joke you have EVER told!" Her counterpart yelled.

"Okay, Okay! Sorry! Gosh!" He retreated into the corner, dashing his eyes between the two dangerously angry women closing in on him as he held up his hands defensively. "Excuse me if I messed up the delivery, okay? It's been kind of a bad day!"

**"YOU'VE** had a bad day?!" She yelled, grabbing him by the ear. "Just because some aliens attacked the Earth and nearly killed us all and your fighter friends saw you freaking out about dying?! So what?! ALL the guys were freaking out!"

"Ow! Ow, babe that hurts!" He pleaded as she gripped his ear. "And no, not all the guys were freaking out. Krillin was fine!"

"Krillin's used to dying!" Her counterpart interceded with folded arms. "He dies all the time."

"Yeah!" She added, releasing his ear so he could rub at it. "You should have **seen** him whining about how scared he was the first time he fought again after being resurrected. All the guys do it their first time back in the fight. It's completely **normal!"**

"R-Really?" He asked.

**"YES!"** They chorused.

"Oh wow!" He leaned against the wall. "What a relief! I thought I was the only one!"

"Oh, I'm **SO** glad I could help!" She turned to gather up her clothes.

"Wait, you're leaving?" He asked.

"I can't BELIEVE I wasted your birthday present on this!" She said as she finished dressing and yanked the cylinder off her arm.

Her counterpart did the same and the two of them rejoined. She hesitated until she regained her balance, then continued out the door and down the hall, leaving a very, very confused Yamcha staring after her.

Bulma piloted herself home at unsafe speeds and skidded to a halt on the lawn. She wanted to scream. She wanted to tear something or someone apart. She wanted to do something stupid or crazy or both. But alas, it was 3am on a weeknight and the whole house was asleep. And the city's idea of 'stupid and crazy' really didn't do it for her anymore since Namek. She sat in the cockpit of her hovercraft in an angry, frustrated silence, cursing her idiot boyfriend again and again until her mind finally sparked with an idea for something crazy she could do.

She slammed the accelerator in the direction of the underground hangers.

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><p><strong>Please review!<strong>

**And don't panic, I want Yamcha GONE as much as you. It won't be too long until he's out of the picture and Vegeta's in. And then the FUN can really begin.**

**As a special treat to those of you who've been reading so faithfully through all these boring chapters, I've decided to give a quick preview of said 'fun' below. **

**DON'T READ if you hate spoilers:**

**FYI: This scene pairs up with chapter 15 of his 'Perspective'. Vegeta is currently desperately trying to internalise and eliminate his feelings for a certain shapely scientist. Unfortunately, as we all know (from the sequence just after the GR explosion), emotions Vegeta tries to bury and ignore tend to come through in his dreams. **

**And now the whole new set of repressed emotions he has for Bulma are coming through as... Lol. You know what I mean... In ch.15 he calls them 'sticky awakenings.**

**.**

**.**

**Bulma sighed as she looked at the printout before her. The GR had been consuming quite a lot of water ever since Vegeta had moved in and she had been hopeful there was a leak somewhere.**

**_/Pity.../_ She thought with disappointment.**

**Had there been a water leak she might have insisted the whole machine be shut down for a few days while she repaired it. **

**She pictured a few days with the GR off... just her and Vegeta... **

**He would probably have stood over her the whole time, waiting for the repairs to be done. Maybe one of the pipes could have been 'persuaded' to burst at just the right moment and douse the two of them until their clothes stuck to their dripping wet bodies... **

**And then, naturally those clothes would have to come off...**

_**/Oh gosh, Bulma! Get a grip before you turn into Master Roshi!/**_

**Besides, it wasn't going to happen anyway. As it turned out, the water usage was up, yes, but it wasn't a leak at all. It was Vegeta. It seemed he was waking several times a night to use the shower.**

**She knew what that meant. It didn't take a genius like her to figure out why a healthy male like Vegeta would be up and down to the shower all the time**

**_/His body's cramping up./_ **

**She furrowed her brow._ /Gosh, why does he push himself so hard?! His body needs more than just food. It needs care! Time and maintenance are as important for bodies as they are for any machine!/_**

**She thought on Vegeta, unable to sleep through the night as his muscles spasmed and cramped from overuse. Yamcha used to have a terrible time with that after a training binge. But Yamcha had had her, or, more specifically, her hands (not that the jerk appreciated them). **

**Actually... Over the years she'd gotten pretty good at massaging out cramped muscles...**

**Would Vegeta let her...?**

_**/No way./ **_**She thought.**_** /He'll probably never even admit to muscle cramps. I bet he thinks they're a sign of weakness or something./**_

**Ohh, but just the thought of getting her hands on that _incredible_ body... And then hearing his deep voice make sexy little moanings that mixed pleasure and pain as she worked the hardened tissue until it finally released...**

**Bulma shook her head. Darn it! Maybe SHE should take a shower.**

_**/Well what if I didn't give him a choice?/ **_**She wondered.**_** /I could just let myself in one night, hop onto his bed and say 'I won't leave this bed until you let me spend at least an hour on your body.' He'd probably be WAY too surprised to argue, at least for the first minute or two. Just enough time to grab out the massage oil and start rubbing! It shouldn't take long to find the stiff spot.../**_

**She smirked, liking the plan quite a bit, then let her expression fall as she came back to reality.**

_**/No way would he want that. Me, showing up on some random night and telling him to lie still and let me touch him all over?! Come on Bulma! Like he's just gonna nod and say 'Okay'. This is VEGETA. He'd toss me straight out the door.../**_

**Bulma sulked quietly. The sad fact was Vegeta didn't want her around. Certainly not in his bed.**

**It was so frustrating! She just knew a few minutes each night with her working her hands along whatever part of him was stiffening up would do** _wonders_** to relieve his tension.**

**She went back to her repairs with another sigh.**

**.**

**.**

**Lol. Little did Bulma know, at that point Vegeta WOULD have lain very still, nodded and said 'Okay'. And once she started rubbing, the 'stiff spot' wouldn't have taken long to find at _all_. **

**Anyway, PLEASE keep reading! We're getting there, slowly, I promise.**

**See you next chapter**


	6. Chapter 4A

**REMINDER: This is a story of perspectives, his and hers, the counterpart story is already complete. You don't NEED to read that other story to get this one, but if you want to know the complete story from VEGETA'S perspective, just go to my other fic. 'Perspective (his)' under my account.**

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><p>Bulma screeched to a halt in front of the main entrance to the hangers and stormed from the cockpit, tossing the keys at the security guards like a valet service as they fell over each other in shock at her unexpected arrival.<p>

"Hey, take care of that for me okay?" She said, jutting her thumb at the hovercraft and ignoring their panicked bows and greetings as she stomped past them down to hanger B12. Bulma reached the locked door and fished into her pocket for her key. It wasn't there.

Stupid Yamcha! Thanks to him she had forgotten to get the key back from Vegeta. Bulma grumbled anew to herself about her extremely irritating boyfriend as she jammed her finger into the intercom.

"Hey Jack! I left my key. Open this!" She shouted.

"U-Uhm! Yes! Right away!" Came the stuttered reply. The door beeped and clanked open.

She entered the room and looked up at the ship.

She scowled at it, folding her arms challengingly. "Okay ya' big piece of space junk, let's see what you've got."

She glanced it over. Sure enough, it was massive. Top of the line and armed to the teeth. Bulma started to feel her adrenalin pump with the craziness of getting this close to something this dangerous. She grinned and walked closer, daring it to retaliate. The ship sat perfectly still, waiting.

Her face set into a determined, wild glare as she approached closer still. Yup. This was insane. And it was just exactly what she needed. Something to attack until it gave up and then tear apart until it was unrecognizable. She would have preferred to do it to Yamcha, but she could definitely make do with this ship.

She paused a few metres from the nearest strut and considered, then redirected herself to crouch behind a nearby transport buggy. She dragged out her pocket multi-tool and tossed it at the hull, then ducked and waited for the sizzling crackle of defense shielding or laser fire. The tool clanked off of the hull and clattered to the floor.

Bulma poked her head up, half disappointed. She narrowed her eyes at the ship. "Now I know you're not gonna give up that easy... You look like you know how to put up a fight."

She slowly stood and inched towards the dangerous vessel, her heart racing as she tapped her knuckles lightly against one of the struts, then instantly turned and ran like hell to hide behind an empty crate.

The room remained silent.

Bulma poked her head from behind the crate.

"Okay." She said as she crept out, continuing to talk to the ship as if it understood. "So your hull isn't alarmed. But you still don't fool me, bub. I know you're not just gonna let some girl stick her spanner wherever she wants."

She quietly approached and touched the outer hull, running her fingers along the smooth surface... If she could just find a seam... maybe she could burrow inside and drain the power? That should _probably_ disarm any internal defense systems against entry.

Slowly she searched the outer shell, her face hovering within inches of the metal as she traced her fingers about for some sort of access point. She searched along, carefully examining the smoothe surface until she finally came to... a wide open door.

"Wha-?!" Bulma fell gracelesly on her backside in utter shock, gaping at the impossible door.

After a moment's pause she picked herself up and approached. Her mind flashed back to Vegeta's words. 'I am familiar with the ship's systems...'

Oh gosh! She had been so distracted by her IDIOT-STUPID-STUPID-**IDIOT** boyfriend Yamcha that she hadn't even registered!

Vegeta hadn't _**carried**_ the ship at all! He had walked right inside, flicked on the ignition and _**piloted**_ it!

She burst into a fit of laughter, as her sour mood lifted. Oh wow, this was incredible! She looked to see her keys sitting just inside the door. Oh that sweetie Vegeta! She would have to do something nice for him. She dashed inside and got straight to work, thrilled with her shiny new present.

... A while later.

"Uhhm... Miss Bulma?"

"Huh?" Bulma poked her head up from inside an access panel to see a security guard nervously holding a cordless telephone. "Hey, what's up?"

"Uh, well, there's a call for you, Miss." He said, holding out the phone and trying not to look bothered at the obviously alien spaceship surrounding him.

"Oh, Thanks." She took the phone and put it to her ear. "Hello?"

"Bulma?"

*Beep* Bulma hung up the phone as she recognized Yamcha's voice, then tossed the handset across the room and fired at it with a fancy laser pistol she'd found among Frieza's things. The phone disintegrated, leaving nothing but an aroma of burned plastic and black scorch mark on the cement.

She stared with a residual irritation at the scorch, dissatisfied with the punishment, then turned to the guard. "If that guy calls again, tell him I'm busy."

"Oh! Y-Yes! Understood Miss!" The guard said, nervously backing away from the angry woman with a gun.

Bulma's tummy growled "Ah!" She giggled, holding her hand over her stomach with slight embarrassment. "Hey, what time is it?"

"Uhm..." He looked at his watch. "12:25?"

"In the afternoon?! Oh wow, no wonder!" She casually stretched and yawned, then tossed the gun at the guard who just barely caught it. "Hey, lock up for me okay? I'm gonna grab a bite and take a nap."

"Yes!" He said, dragging his eyes away from gawking at the advanced energy weapon in his hands.

Bulma ambled back to the main complex, feeling pretty pleased with herself. She'd hit the jackpot in that ship, no question and she was still just looking through the cupboards! Best of all she had found plenty of clothes for their new houseguest. Bodysuits galore, and about forty pairs of stretchy little shorts she could only assume to be some kind of boxers. She'd had all sent straight to Vegeta's room. No more secondhand pink shirt.

Bulma rubbed her weary eyes sleepily and stuck her head in the door of the main kitchen to place an order. The room was a buzz of hurried activity as the new and old droids worked together in preparing a massive banquet of food. Bulma blinked at the dishes a moment, wondering if they were hosting a party she didn't know about, before remembering it was nearly time for Vegeta's lunch. She smiled, deciding to join him.

"Hey chef?" She called, spotting the main unit amidst the controlled chaos.

"Oh! Mistress Bulma!" The Chef called happily. "Are you hungry? What can we fetch to tempt you?"

"You're in a good mood." She said, slightly surprised.

"Oh yes! These new units are very adequate!" He said, which for him was nothing short of gushing praise. "Not nearly so talented as myself, of course, but highly efficient!"

"Glad to see you're getting along." She smiled. "I'm really not that hungry, so just some fruit and a cup of chamomile tea for me, okay? I'll eat with Vegeta."

"Certainly Mistress! I'll have it sent out promptly." The chef turned back to direct activities and Bulma left to wash her face.

A while later she was dozing in the sunlight as the staff laid out the dishes for her and Vegeta. She sipped at her tea sleepily until she saw Vegeta, the sight of whom sent her immediately coughing and sputtering her tea everywhere. Vegeta walked over, calmly wearing nothing but the tiny shorts she had assumed to be boxers. Bulma laughed to herself. Saiyans sure weren't shy about their bodies. Not that Vegeta needed to be, he was built with that 'martial artist' body she was accustomed to seeing on all the guys, but it was just hilarious that he could be simultaneously so shy in some ways and yet so NOT shy in others.

By the time he sat opposite her, Bulma had thankfully collected herself and she was soon continuing her story of her and Goku from where she'd left off before Frieza interrupted them. It was actually kind of nice. The sunlight felt warm and wonderful after being cooped up in a spaceship for so long. And so far as conversation, the unidirectional 'I talk, you listen' style of relating the tale was ideal for both of them. His mouth was way too busy chewing to talk even if he wanted to, and she enjoyed having someone to share the old stories with. She soon found her mind relaxing into the comfortable time together, drifting fully into the memory of their meeting all those years ago as her mouth spoke on and on...

Her... Goku... His tail... his funny little pole that he carried everywhere. ..The Radar picking up the four star ball ... 4.65 kilometers from where they met... little Goku leading her past 627 trees, one waterfall and 18 boulders along the way until they finally arrived at the hut in the woods at GPS coordinate...

Vegeta's eyes finally looked up at her with that confused, curious face she had seen before as he registered the level of detail she was feeding him to be very different to and above a 'normal' memory.

Bulma froze.

He swallowed what was in his mouth and took a sip of his drink, eyeing her up.

_/Oh no.../_ She felt like she wanted to run, but there was no where to go. _/Oh... Oh **damn** it!/_

She hadn't slipped up like that in **years!**

She braced herself for the awful, unavoidable conversation she knew was coming. Oh and he would definitely tell the guys! Oh hell, it was about to be high school all over again! Forever turned from a cool genius back into a living freak show. Bulma the brain. A perpetual source of amusement as her 'friends' constantly 'tested' her memory over and over by tossing her random, pointless questions like she was living on a quiz show just so they could brag about knowing someone with a 'photographic' memory.

Stupid stupid... DAMN IT! She didn't even HAVE a photographic memory, she had an eidetic memory! There was a difference! Not that pointing it out had ever done anything but make her even more of a freak. Oh **# ****&$** ! Why did she have to go and tell a story when she was half asleep?!

"Are you done?" He asked.

"Yeah." She said as she waited for the living hell to begin, looking at her empty plate and scrunching her nails into the fabric of her skirt.

"Hmph!" He laughed. "A Namek could have eaten more. Pathetic."

Bulma's eyes whipped up to stare after him in shock. She sat there, astonished.

Did he really not care?

No. That was... He must just not have noticed. Maybe he wasn't really listening? She opened her mouth to question it.

"Hey-" She quickly snapped her lips shut again as her brain screamed at the idiocy of drawing attention to what she had just been cursing against revealing.

But... some part of her demanded to know! How could he not be torturing her with questions right now?!

Her mouth opened again. "Uh."

She forced her mouth closed._ /Gosh you crazy idiot shut up! This is good! Leave it alone!/_

Vegeta watched her debating, then rolled his eyes and pointed at a bowl of soup with his chopsticks.

"That one." He mumbled around his rice.

"Huh?" She looked at him.

He took a drink. "I have eaten six of that one, I am bored of it now."

Bulma gawked at him. He seriously thought she just wanted more food?! That was the final straw. Her mouth stormed straight past her protesting brain and began to yell.

"Were you even listening to a word I said?!" She glared at him. "627 trees and 18 boulders?! Did you **hear **that?!"

Vegeta growled. "Blasted woman, do you imagine how little I care how many **boulders** there were?! How long do you intend to drag out this account?! Thus far Kakarot has failed to do a single thing worthy of my interest! Instead I am subjected to the pointless dronings of your eidetic memory!"

"It's **CALLED** an ei- ..." Bulma hesitated as she realised he had actually said it correctly. "Hey, how'd you know that?"

He sneered. "The galaxy is large, human, you are not the first I have met with such a technique. Though you appear to be by far the **worst** I have seen at utilising it. Never have I heard such a sequence of endless, useless minutiae as has proceeded from you in the past minutes. Might I suggest you focus in future on developing the **intelligence** required to **sort** it!"

"Oh you did NOT just call me stupid!" She banged her fist on the table. "I'll have you know I am the single most incredible **genius** you are ever likely to meet and you are darn lucky I'm willing to spend my precious time talking to you at all!"

"Well if your time is so valuable hurry up your gibberish!" He countered.

"FINE!" She yelled. "Goku fought someone! The end!"

"Idiot woman!" He yelled back, leaping from his seat. "What use is that to me?!"

"Well, make up your mind! Do you want the details or NOT?!" She glared at him.

"Gaah!" He slammed his fist on the table, sending several plates skittering and sloshing about. "Have you ANYTHING on Kakarot worthy of my interest?!"

She grinned, "Well, you'll never find out unless you let me finish! Will you?!"

"Blasted woman!" He glared at her a moment, his temper clearly simmering.

Finally he sat back down, but not without deliberately reaching over his half finished plate and taking back the bowl of soup he had offered her in a slightly petty display. "Continue the account."

"Forget it buddy!" Bulma huffed. "I'm tired. I'm going to bed. You'll just have to wait until tomorrow."

Bulma walked back into the house as Vegeta glared daggers after her, then dragged herself up the stairs and collapsed into bed.

_/...not the first, huh?/_ She thought, letting her eyes shut.

She snuggled into the pillows, her anger rapidly dissipating to leave nothing but a ticklish gratitude as she replayed over and over that perfect, unimpressed sneer Vegeta had aimed at her. He didn't freak out. Didn't fire off a dozen questions. Didn't retreat to a safe distance for whispering and staring or drag her across the room to make her perform like a trained animal.

Nope. He didn't even bat an eye. To him, her memory was nothing more than a common 'technique'.

She had never thought of it like that. A technique. After all, half of her friends regularly lifted off the ground and shot into the air! That was a common 'technique' too, she didn't think it was weird when they used it. Why was she any different? Those stupid high schoolers were just freaking out about nothing. There were loads of people like her. Just ask Vegeta. He met them.

She had known the universe was a big place. She had known there must be... there HAD to be others. She had known it but... hearing it said like that... it felt like the nicest thing anyone had ever said to her.

_/Gosh,/_ She thought as a blushing little smile started toying at her lips, _/Vegeta's just so sweet sometimes./_

* * *

><p><strong>Okay, explanation time: Bulma's eidetic memory - If you watch the anime, she absolutely has one and she absolutely doesn't talk about it. <strong>

**How I know she has one? **

**Many examples, but two spring to mind. 1) When she found out about needing to learn Namekian to pilot Picollo's ship, she instantly remembered back to the only time she had heard Namekian spoken (at the tournament). She recalled, in perfect detail, every single word spoken, but said they didn't say enough words for her to master the entire language. At which point I was like "Wow!" The boys then casually ask if she thinks she can learn Namekian in 10 days. That's right, while repairing a spaceship, in her SPARE time, can she learn an entire LANGUAGE in TEN DAYS? She says 'Probably'. At which point I was like "WHAT THE HELL?!" I've learned languages. They take a while. **

** 2) Easy one - when she's yelling at Vegeta about how she knew it was doctor Gero's face on the Android. The description she gave: 'His picture and underneath, in big, black letters, it said 'Doctor Gero!' It was like she was describing a photographic mental image of the page. And she knew Vegeta wouldn't question it further. That he knew her memory of that one time she saw that one page in a magazine would be flawless, no matter how many years had passed.**

**How I know she doesn't talk about it:**

**1) She doesn't. Throughout the anime she chatters about being a genius, but she NEVER mentions her memory or makes a big deal out of it.**

**2) When she was in high school, she was a highly attractive, curvaceous sixteen year old girl with easygoing parents, endless cash and a dirty mind. Yet she had NO BOYFRIEND and even hated high school enough to constantly skip class ALONE (No friends to skip with?). She would leave school early and come straight HOME (?!), alone on her motorcycle, saying she was 'bored'. And she jumped at the chance to ditch school completely and go with Goku. She wasn't happy in high school. She was an outcast for some reason she wouldn't say. **


	7. Chapter 4B

**REMINDER: This is a story of perspectives, his and hers, the counterpart story is already complete. You don't NEED to read that other story to get this one, but if you want to know the complete story from VEGETA'S perspective, just go to my other fic. 'Perspective (his)' under my account.**

* * *

><p>Bulma slept straight through the night and woke early the next day. She spent a while on her laptop, typing up an inventory of all the stuff she'd pulled from Frieza's cupboards thus far and requisitioning storage containers and a.i. droids to help her sort through it all, then made herself presentable and ambled downstairs to sit in the living room, drinking coffee and flipping through a magazine.<p>

"Oh sweetie!" Her mother walked in. "I didn't know you were up. Yamcha called for you a few times. I'll just go call him back now to-"

"Do NOT tell that jerk where I am!" She interrupted.

"Oh my!" Mrs Brief turned back to look at her with concern. "Did you two have a fight?"

"You **BET** we did!" Bulma slammed down her near empty coffee cup, jumping at the opportunity to point out her boyfriend's idiocy and rally support to her side of their latest argument. "Get this. He was **_joking_** mom! Can you believe it?! He was just _**joking**_ about us getting married!"

"Oh you must be so relieved!" Her mother replied cheerily. "I'm so happy you two lovebirds are back on the same page. But what was the fight about then?"

Bulma paused. She had sort of forgotten the part where she had said she didn't want to marry him yet either...

She thought...

What was the fight about?

"Well..." Her mind flashed to that image of him on one knee, looking into her eyes, saying she was everything he had ever wanted or dreamt of and promising to do whatever it took to make her his.

And then a second later taking every word straight back!

"Well... who makes **jokes** like that?!" She shouted. "There's things you just **DON'T** joke about and 'Will you marry me' is definitely one of them!"

"Oh I see." Her mother said, tilting her head in that way that indicated she didn't see at all. "Well, I hope you two patch things up soon."

Bulma scowled at the casualness with which everyone she knew accepted 'fighting' as her and Yamcha's relationship status, but she couldn't really hold it against them. This was , after all, their 3,287th fight resulting in a major event. 4,393rd if you didn't merge the ones that flowed on directly from the one before. People were pretty used to it. She decided to drop the subject and stood to go outside.

Mrs Brief watched her heading for the door. "Are you going out already? Did you eat breakfast?"

"I'm not really hungry yet." She replied. Goku's trademark, well meant, brutal honesty about looking pregnant sure did wonders as an appetite suppressant. "I think I'll stick to coffee until lunch. I kinda promised Vegeta I'd eat with him today."

"O~oh!" Mrs Brief clasped her hands together. "How nice. He's such a darling young man!"

"Mmn." She agreed, smiling that soft little smile as she recalled again his easy acceptance of her 'technique' and the resultant warm place her heart had set aside for him.

"Oh my... That's quite a smile!" Mrs Brief said mischievously. "Oh dear, maybe I shouldn't have warned him off after all."

"Huh?" Bulma looked back at her. "Warned him... What?"

"I think he's a little sweet on you." Her mother giggled. "But I didn't want him getting his hopes up, so after you left yesterday I told him you and Yamcha were probably settling down soon."

**"WHAT?!"** Bulma screeched, her mind protesting on every possible level. "Y-You actually told Vegeta... Oh my **gosh, MOM!"**

She felt her whole form filling with a deep, deep humiliation that only a well meaning parent could cause.

"What did he **SAY?!"** She demanded.

"Well, he really didn't say anything." Mrs Brief replied. "He looked at me a moment and then walked away like he wasn't sure why I had told him. Such a strange man."

"You're the strange one, Mom!" She countered. "He probably **WAS** wondering what on Earth you were telling him about my love life for!"

"Okay..." Bulma took a deep breath and tried to find words her mother would understand. "Let me just say this right now. Vegeta's not **human. ** He's** saiyan.** Like Goku. They're... different. Really, **really** different. You **get** that, right mom?"

Bulma's mother looked in confusion at her.

She sighed. "I know he looks like a man, but inside... Saiyans just **aren't,** mom. Not like you're thinking anyway. They live to fight and get stronger. It takes up their whole life, their whole heart. There's just no room for anything else. I can understand why you'd get your signals crossed. It took me a long time to get used to it too, believe me, I kept waiting for it. I couldn't understand it. On the outside, Goku was a guy, he should have reacted to pretty girls like a human guy, but he never did. No matter what happened. I mean girls were always going for him, they practically threw themselves at him! I bet they still do. Every time one of my friends sees his photo they always get that 'who's the hottie?' look and ask for his stats. But no matter how many girls he met, no matter how pretty they were, no matter what they tried, or what he saw or what Master Roshi tried to show him... he just didn't understand the appeal. Dating... romance... He couldn't see why humans were so obsessed with it. And in all these years, he never has.

"He only learned to tell genders apart because everyone was laughing at him, and yeah, I know he managed to have a kid somehow, so ChiChi must have managed to turn him on at least once, which is pretty darn impressive if you ask me, but then after a year without his wife he was still in no hurry to get home, so I'm guessing, 'special time' with ChiChi isn't really much of a pull for him. He'd rather fight. I just don't think saiyans, you know, 'mate' and pair off like we do. I'm guessing it was all a lot more casual over there. Goku really, genuinely doesn't understand the difference between a wife and a friend or even what romantic love **IS** or... You get the idea. Saiyans... Asking them to feel that stuff is like asking a Namek to feel hunger. It's just not in them. They don't have those feelings. Vegeta's... I'm not a girl to him I'm just ... human. And I kind of like that. It's part of what makes saiyans such great friends."

"Friends?" Mrs Brief asked.

"Yeah. It's not like with Krillin or Master Roshi where I always have to watch them in case they start being perverted or be careful what I say in case they get the wrong idea. I can relax around Goku and Vegeta. If I catch one of those two looking at my butt, I know there's probably something stuck to it."

"Oh dear... friends... poor Vegeta." Her mother said thoughtfully.

"I know. How boring, right?" Bulma laughed. "But hey, they're happy like that, so who am I to mess with it? Just, uhm... please, **_PLEASE_** don't try to use your super matchmaker powers on Vegeta again, okay?"

"If you say so dear." Her mother said thoughtfully.

"Phew! Thanks mom." Bulma turned and left to finish looting the pilfered spaceship.

A while later she sat opposite the saiyan once more, watching him devour enough food to feed a small village as she continued the story. She chattered on, remembering her own words to her mother and smiling about the truth in them. Saiyans made, by far, the best friends. She had never felt so wonderfully, wonderfully relaxed around another person before! He wasn't a girl, so she didn't have to compete like she did with her girl friends, and he wasn't _really_ a guy either, so she didn't have to act all 'pretty'. Plus, that huge ego of his actually made him pretty easy to talk to. He was 'the great Prince Vegeta'! Nothing surprised him and nothing intimidated him. It was so nice having a conversation with someone who didn't freak out every time she recalled her sixteen year old self having a gun shoved in her face or running from a psychotic killing machine. Someone who didn't laugh at her when she raged against falling straight through the Nimbus and insisted it was broken. Over and over she flashed her memory and over and over he gave the same, slightly annoyed, sneer. Pretty soon she was deliberately overdoing it, using her memory to an excess, just because it was so incredibly fun. It had never been so much **fun** before! She was using it by choice, not because she was being forced to. And somehow that made all the difference. The minutes flew by and before long the food was gone and he was standing to go back to his GR.

She watched him leave and stood reluctantly, reminding herself that she could keep going tomorrow. She knew, of course, that eventually she would have to speed up the plot. Just... not yet. It was still too much fun. But eventually she'd have to. After all, who would show up every day just to see what Goku might do next? Half of what she said was **obviously** delay tactics and fillers. A show that slow moving would be cancelled instantly!

Nah. Nobody in their right mind would watch it. Certainly not for any length of time.

She was pulled from her thoughts by a loud explosion coming from inside the GR. The windows streamed with rays of blinding light before darkening again.

_/Wow.../_ She thought. _ /I guess he's really going for it in there.../_

She looked over the tiny ship. Until that day it had looked 'top of the line'. She had genuinely thought it was a masterpiece of technology, but now...

That morning she had gotten a chance to look at the technology of Frieza's ship... And after seeing it, she couldn't help but reexamine her own planet's clumsy attempt with fresh eyes.

It was a rusty old lemon. The whole surface was scratched up and dirty from its time in space. It was small. And the inside was even smaller. The multiple thick layers of metal and wiring making up the shell left the passengers crammed into a relatively tiny inner room.

Frieza's ship was sleek. Sporty. And the inside was down right roomy! The hull was made of a single, thin layer of some kind of alloy she'd never seen before that left all their multiple layers of high grade titanium and carbon fibres looking like tin foil and string. By comparison, their 'top of the line' ship was down right embarrassing.

Not that Vegeta complained, but...

She filled with determination as she stood and dashed back to Frieza's ship. Capsule Corp was known for building the best of the best. They would NOT be upstaged by some dead psychopath's tech. This ship was right on the front lawn! It needed to be an example of what they were capable of. The **best.**

.

.

.

A few days later...

.

.

.

.

Bulma awoke in a mess of sweat. The room was a veritable oven with the crackling heat from the welding going on all around her. She rubbed at her eye and stretched, shrugging off her jacket to let it fall to the floor. That was better. Her body started to cool.

All around her the droids continued their work.

The new structural support gear for Vegeta's GR had arrived the previous night. Bulma had instantly jumped at the chance to install it and finally get the 300G's Vegeta had asked for the previous week. But the welding depleted the oxygen in the room, and together with the warmth from the torches and the tiny morsels of sleep she'd been getting over the past few days as she obsessively reverse engineered Frieza's tech... let's just say this wasn't the first time she had dozed off that night.

She glanced at her watch.

"N-No way!" She exclaimed, appalled by how long she had slept this time. She dashed over to look in at the circuit board she had been working on and paused.

"Oh!" She glanced at the closest droid. "You finished the soldering for me? Thank you very much!"

She smiled, then turned back to inspect the work. It was flawless. As usual, Capsule Corp 'bots were the best of the best.

"Right." She said, glancing the work over one last time and feeling more than slightly proud of her little creations. "If that's all done then ee should be able to pack up and get out of here before his royal majesty Prince Shouts-a-lot gets in."

She dusted her hands and turned around. "WHA-?!"

Vegeta stood directly behind her.

"Vegeta?!" She gawked at him._ /How long was he standing there?!/ _

"It's about time, woman. You need to work on your guard." He grinned.

_/About time? Ok, so definitely a while.../ _

"Were you watching me sleep?"_ /Gosh, this guy... Didn't he know it was okay to just wake me up?/_

She smiled, calming down as she remembered this was Vegeta. He was probably too shy to wake her. She could just picture him arriving, finding her, standing over her a minute, not knowing what to do, then eventually going to lean against the wall and try to think of a way to get a sleeping human out of his GR without waking her or touching her or in any way interacting with her.

"You perv!" She exclaimed with mock scandal, delighted with the chance to torture him anew. "Wait until my mom and dad find out the great prince Vegeta is nothing but a peeping Tom!"

She folded her arms and sighed. "Oh dear, it's always the quiet ones..."

Bulma peaked out of the corner of her eye. Her endless teasing over the past week was starting to have an effect on the painfully shy prince. He didn't just do the awkward, uncertain, 'grumpy face' anymore. After a few days it had become 'grumpy face and mumble something under his breath'. Naturally she wouldn't let **that** go. She just teased him even **more** until he said whatever he mumbled so she could hear it. A while of that and he had started to skip the mumbling altogether. Now it was 'grumpy face and shouted reply', though he always instantly disappeared after that and didn't talk again for at least an hour.

Gosh! So cute! Not that she was teasing him for her amusement. Of course not! It was all for his own good. Gosh, she was such a nice person! The fact that the former mass murderer and war criminal was completely adorable when running to hide from talking to one girl was utterly beside the point!

She waited for him to do the shout and storm off routine he usually did, eagerly anticipating what combination of ill conceived words he would throw in his hurry to get away.

He grinned, stepping forward.

Bulma watched in shock.

This was new.

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><p><strong>Hooray! The stories have FINALLY linked up again! Stay tuned! And please follow  favorite!**


	8. Chapter 4C

Vegeta took a position before her. "Do not compare me to one of your weak race. I came to train, as you well know."

Bulma watched the Prince in astonishment. He was... calm?! Was he finally starting to loosen up? Maybe even overcome a little of his shyness? No way. Impossible! He hadn't said a complete sentence to her since that day he'd discovered her eidetic memory! He'd probably bottle up again after that sentence.

To her astonishment his lips parted again and more words, actual _words_ came out.

"Now I wish to know why I found you sleeping in my territory?" He waited for her to reply.

_/Oh. My. Gosh!/_ He was even waiting for a reply! That equaled a conversation! Bulma had never been so excited to hear someone talk. The whole room seemed **filled** with a powerful, crackling energy! _/I the incredible genius, Bulma Brief, have made a rock talk! YES! I knew he just needed a little teasing!/_

**"Your** territory?!" She quickly responded, beaming with delight at her success. This was perfect! She'd been so caught up in the enjoyment of teasing him that she'd nearly forgotten why she'd started, but it all rushed back to her then. She just needed to make him loosen up around her, then slowly bring in the other Z fighters one by one until he was part of the group. "Hey, look around you Mister. Do you see your name written anywhere on this thing? No! And do you know why?"

She didn't give him a chance to respond. "Because it wouldn't FIT next to the massive 'Capsule Corp logo! This thing is ours, and we're being very nice by letting you use it at all! Hmph!"

She folded her arms and turned her nose up at him, waiting with baited breath. Would he reply?

"Yours?" He said, even stepping **closer** to close the gap between them in open acknowledgement that they were currently talking. "Surely you mean your father's. You're taking credit credit for your father's achievements as usual."

Bulma's eyes targeted him, gosh she couldn't have been more astonished if **Kitty** had suddenly started talking! She didn't know how or why, maybe it was that line about being 'Prince Shouts-a-lot', but he was absolutely talking and they were absolutely having a conversation. Well, slightly more a fight than a conversation, but somehow that was even better. She grinned as she started getting competitive. No way was she going to lose!

"As if!" She replied eagerly. "Who upgraded this ship for you again? I happen to be just as smart as my father, but I do it with a knock out bod' thrown into the mix!"

"Besides, what have YOU done lately?" She challenged, taking advantage of his proximity and poked her finger into his chest. "Other than being born to the right family?"

Vegeta's eyes darted down to where her finger was pressing into his chest, his shyness peaking back through. The prince was clearly **not** used to being touched. Punched, yes, but touched, no. Bulma felt a little tickle of amusement, but tried to keep it in. Eventually he dragged his eyes back up, collecting himself.

"For your information, only the strongest progeny of the King are selected as princes. I began conquering entire planets by the time I was four years old." He grinned proudly.

"Really? Your folks were that eager to get you out of the house?" She felt his posture deflate slightly as he realised he'd walked right into that one. "Wow, you must have been a real little brat! Looks like you haven't changed much either."

She watched him planning his next line. Gosh, wow! Why didn't he talk more? He was great at it! She was hanging on his every word! He was... incredible! He was actually keeping up. No one had ever lasted this long in a fight against her. She awaited his reply. One thing was for sure, Vegeta was clever. Far more clever than she'd realised.

Finally he spoke again. "You are hardly one to speak of poor behaviour, woman."

_/Poor behaviour?/ _Her mind repeated as she admired the way his deep voice rumbled through her mind, tickling every neuron with the even deeper intelligence it carried. _ /Oh Mister, you have no idea the naughty things I could- **WHAT THE HELL?!**/_

Did she just get a little... Wow. That was random.

Bulma tried desperately to get her head back in the game, but her concentration was completely gone after that _extremely_ inappropriate reaction her body had tossed out in response to his words. She jumped to her standard move, dashing her hand up for his earlobe to buy some time while she re composed herself.

Her hand was fast, but Vegeta was MUCH faster. He dodged her grip easily, leaving her with nothing but a handful of hair. She decided to take what she could get, dragging him in so she could yell in his face.

"Ugh! How hard is it to remember?!" She gripped his hair. Hard. "BULMA! My NAME is **BULMA!"**

The argument was as recycled as the move, but it was a good one anyway. She didn't like the way he called her 'woman' like she was a lower life form. She was a person! She had a name!

Vegeta froze, wide eyed. He looked completely shocked by the little human woman shouting in his face.

He held his breath.

His eyes dashed to her mouth and back.

"SAY IT!" She tightened her grip. Why was he holding his breath? And looking at her mouth?

His face began to flush. His eyes drifted back again to her mouth then back up to her eyes uncertainly. Bulma suddenly understood.

_/Oh gosh, when did I last brush my teeth?/ _She'd been working all night so... yesterday morning. And what's more she hadn't eaten since yesterday lunch. _/My breath must be **deadly!/** _

Her cheeks began to pink. Ugh! Typical saiyan! At least he had the manners not to say it out loud, but still! Holding his breath? Was it really that bad?

Well, she was NOT backing down! Today would be the day he would SAY her name!

His eyes drifted lower, taking in her body. Bulma's cheeks flushed deeper as she remembered she also hadn't bathed in the last 36 hours... Oh great, she probably stank of oil and sweat too!

She filled with anger. How DARE he use her own vanity against her?! It was HIS fault she didn't get time to wash up! She was busy installing the supports for the higher gravity!

"SAY IT!" She shouted right in his mouth, so furious that she decided to use her deadly breath as a weapon. He couldn't hold his breath forever!

That was the final straw. Seeing she wasn't going to release him on her own, Vegeta began wriggling free. He twisted his head, pulling it from her grasp and nearly headbutting her as he wrenched out of her hand.

"Ah!" She quickly dodged and released him.

Bulma stormed to the opposite end of the room, suddenly far more self conscious about her stinky self now that it had failed as a weapon. Her lips tingled where they had brushed his. Had her reflexes kicked in a nanosecond later she might have lost a tooth!

She glared at him. "Gosh! Were you BORN this annoying?!"

Vegeta folded his arms. "Enough of your stalling! State your business here!"

Bulma felt a crash of disappointment as she took in his posture and tone and realised their 'conversation' was over. He was back to 'Prince Shouts-a-lot'.

She folded her arms, deciding she was in no mood to be shouted at. "Say please!"

Bulma felt a gust of wind and a rush of momentum as Vegeta pinned her to the wall.

**#BANG!#** He drove his fist deep into the panel beside her ear creating a deafening noise so loud she actually couldn't hear for a few seconds.

"You IDIOT!" She screeched "I just fixed that panel!"

_/Ugh, these boys!/_ She inspected the dent angrily. _ /Every time they lose an argument they punch a wall! Do they ever consider the person who **built** that wall?/_

"Leave!" He demanded. "Now!"

"Oh you are SO impatient!" She shouted back, her ears still ringing from the bang of his temper tantrum. "Well, for your information I CAN'T leave yet! I haven't finished here!"

She took a breath and tried to speak calmly. "The support struts for the higher gravity arrived last night. They were taking up space on the lawn so I decided to install them to get them out of the way."

She couldn't believe she had been so eager to install them! _/I bet I could have left them there and had a bubble bath for all the thanks I'm likely to get.../_

Vegeta hesitated, his annoyance dissipating as he realised he was getting what he asked for. "How long until the work is complete?"

Bulma extracted herself from between him and the wall and surveyed the room. "Well, to tell the truth, I didn't think it would take this long, but when I started installing the struts I found micro fractures all over the hull. It's a good thing I spotted them early. Left on their own they'd have eventually caused the walls to implode when the gravity was up."

"I think the sudden changes in air pressure when you throw the generator straight to the maximum are to blame." She picked up a removed wall panel, looking over the extensive welding it had taken to patch the thousands of tiny cracks. "If it was doing that to the ship I hate to think what it was doing to your skull... I'm guessing you probably felt it and ignored it like the crazy freak you are."

She walked to the wall and pushed the panel into its place, hefting up an electric wrench to bolt it on. "Anyway, we've repaired and reinforced the most damaged areas, and while I was rewiring the generator for 300G's I also set it to kick in more slowly. From now on it'll go up in increments of 1G per second until it reaches the right level."

"How long, woman?" He said again, sounding impatient.

"Aha!" She giggled in new understanding. "Now that you know you're about to get a new toy you're all excited to play with it! Well... About an hour I think. Most of the work is done, but the welding will have to cool and then I'll have to do a test run... Yeah. About an hour. Think you can amuse yourself for that long?"

"Just finish the work, woman." He replied. "I am perfectly capable of seeing to my own affairs."

"Oh you're such a brat!" She said with mock annoyance, though she couldn't help noticing he was definitely forming more sentences than before. They had absolutely made progress today. "Just stay nearby, I'll come let you know when your new toy is ready to play with."

She smiled and watched him leave, staring after him a moment before turning back to her work. Her fingers unconsciously lifted to her lips, remembering where they had brushed Vegeta's. An image of Yamcha popped into her head, dragging guilt in its wake. She shook her head. It wasn't a kiss! It was a near miss headbutt! And she dodged! She had nothing to feel guilty about!

She went back to bolting the panel on.

It wasn't a kiss.

She had nothing to feel guilty about...

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><p><strong>PLEASE REVIEW! <strong>


	9. Chapter 5

Bulma worked another few minutes, but her heart wasn't in it anymore. She looked around the room. There really was hardly anything left to do, and what there was, the droids were on top of.

She stood, stretched, glanced about one last time, and left, instructing them to buzz her when the work was through. Her eyes caught an image in the distance of Vegeta chatting with her father outside the enclosure. She smiled, pleased to see them starting to get along too, then immediately felt like she somehow **_shouldn't_** be smiling at Vegeta and scurried in the opposite direction.

Ugh! What was WITH her?! Vegeta wasn't a guy! He was a saiyan! The same species that once walked in on her in the tub, looked at her perfect boobs and thought they were a second butt! THAT was the species she was... gosh, what the heck was she getting worked up for? She calmed down. Please... it was a headbutt! Totally not a kiss.

Her mouth was probably just over alert from not getting kissed on a regular basis. A memory of the last time she'd been **_really_** kissed began to burn gently in the back of her consciousness.

Bulma bit her lip. Yamcha sure was a good kisser… not that she'd ever kissed anyone else, but she didn't need to to know he was good at it. She loved it when they spotted some quiet corner, that familiar mischief sparking in their eyes as they quietly ducked inside. He always started so slow, playing all innocent, then slowly getting less innocent... pushing into her, inching her back until he backed her up against a wall. Their mouths could stay locked together on and on... then slowly his throat would start making those deep, masculine noises as his hands found their favorite places, gently sneaking around her body... claiming, cupping, sliding up, under the cloth, not too far, just a little, in case they got interrupted... rough, strong hands... making her shiver... making her arch up and-

She shook her head. She was supposed to be MAD at him! She reminded herself again of how much of a clueless **jerk** it took to pull that 'Marry me' stunt. And then to act like he didn't even realize it?! Like it was somehow HER FAULT for being... For being what? Oversensitive?! PLUS making her completely **waste** his present…

She paused.

Actually, come to think of it, she HAD wasted his present, hadn't she? What was she going to give him now? Yamcha's birthday was in… eleven days. Not that he deserved anything but a swift kick in the behind, but still, if by some miracle he managed to make this latest offence up to her within the next ten days it was better to be ready. She wondered in the direction of her lab, tossing her previous strange thoughts on Vegeta's momentary resemblance to a guy out of her head as she began to brainstorm gift ideas.

A while later the droids buzzed her. She looked up from the semi-disassembled alien technology and weaponry in front of her to see the readout on her screen. The work was complete.

"Great!" She said aloud to no one in particular as she slid a scouter over her ear. "Now to track down his majesty."

She clicked her way through the displays…

"There you are!" She exclaimed cheerfully. "And it looks like I caught you with your hand right in the cookie jar!"

She giggled, the prince was blinking brightly on the scouter right in the underground hangers where she'd stashed Frieza's ship and the beginnings of his next GR. After a quick, perfunctory test of the current 'make do' 'rusty lemon' GR Bulma found herself standing outside hanger B12.

She looked at the door...

Oh hell, was she hesitating?!

She balled up her fists. _/He is **NOT** a **GUY!**/_ She reminded herself. Maybe she just needed to prove it for herself. She pushed the (broken, thank you Vegeta) door open and looked at him.

There he stood. Prince Vegeta. In all his glory. That absurdly rigid hair shooting straight up atop an equally absurdly rigid posture, his little furry tail poking out at the back, barefoot and butt-naked as always except for his little boxers. She smiled, nearly laughing.

_/**DEFINITELY** not a guy./_ What on Earth was she freaking out about? Truthfully the sight of him right then left her wondering. That crazy hair... That crazy outfit! Even the crazy way he moved, flicking his head about like a predator searching for prey. He was most definitely **saiyan.**

Vegeta seemed to have discovered his next GR, or rather, the framework of such, and was poking about, checking it out eagerly.

"Oh, found you!" She said aloud, announcing her presence as she tapped off the scouter. "Figures I'd find you in here. This thing's pretty useful!"

He whipped around, startled by her arrival and then instantly grumpy that she'd managed to sneak up on him.

"I found your little 'project', woman." He said accusingly in a blatant attempt to divert attention from the fact that he'd been caught. "Did you think you could keep it from me?"

Bulma sighed, tempted to tease him about getting caught, but deciding against it. "Nope. That's why I put you on the authorized entrants list. Didn't you even notice that no alarms went off when you came in? It's not just because the security guard liked those tight little shorts."

She looked at him as he displayed open surprise at not being told off. Gosh! She had already told him before she asked him to stay that he could relax! 'Take a vacation' she said.

But ever since he'd arrived he'd been so ridiculously careful! He just existed between his room, the kitchen and his GR, trying to stay out of everyone's way. He obviously didn't get what she'd meant. Vegeta was welcome. One of the family! He had as much right to sprawl out in the living room and call 'dibs' on the remote control as anyone else! This prince was stiffer than Gohan! Well here was a good chance to let Vegeta **see** that he didn't have to always act like a 'guest'. He wasn't 'caught' because he wasn't trespassing!

"So you wanted me to see this?" Vegeta asked in his eternally grumpy voice, laced with a hint of confusion.

"No. Not yet." She glanced up. "I'd rather you'd waited until it was finished, but I knew you wouldn't be able to resist coming down here eventually. I used to do the same thing with my own presents when I was a kid. You really are a brat!"

She smiled her most welcoming smile.

Vegeta froze, looking back at the ship and around the room.

_/That's right. You're not in that awful army anymore Mister. You're **free** now! Raid the fridge! Wander around! Do whatever you want! You don't need permission./_

He stood there. Somewhat lost for words. Bulma felt a flicker of pity that the concept of 'freedom' seemed so unbelievable to him.

_/Wow, how long did Frieza... How long since he was last 'free'?/ _

He glanced from the ship to her, still uncertain, waiting for punishment. What would Frieza have done to him when he stepped out of line? She looked at the Prince. That hesitant expression. That body riddled with terrible scars... Were they all really from battle? How many did Frieza put there himself?

She had known Vegeta was a slave, but somehow she had never thought about what that meant until that moment. What sort of life had he lead?! No wonder he never showed pain.

No wonder he never spoke.

She thought about her and Goku, all those years laughing and playing around. Young and happy and free, both of them completely unaware that out there in space was Vegeta, Goku's own flesh and blood, clinging to his pride as that monster did everything he could to **beat** it out of him.

She looked with fresh eyes at that perfectly straight posture. It had looked so ridiculous minutes earlier, but not anymore. All those years... all those scars... but his head was still high. He was a prince. **Never** a slave. He never broke.

Wow.

"Now come on and let's get out of here." She said before the rapidly building emotion could break through her flimsy control and embarrass them both. "That thing's at **least** three months away from being ready so you're just going to have to make do with the one you've got for now. Which is finished by the way, thanks to a certain genius."

Vegeta looked back to where she was standing in the doorway.

"Come on your highness. 300G's awaits. " She smiled and beckoned him to follow her. "Let's get you all hot and sweaty."

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><p><strong>Just a tiny chapter today, sorry.<strong>

**Kudos to anyone who's already worked out what Yamcha's 'present' is gonna be. See you next time!**


	10. Chapter 6A

Bulma glared at the phone in front of her, despising it and everything its silence represented. She huffed and stormed out of the room only to be confronted with another, identical telephone, which she began glaring at with equal, if not greater disapproval.

Finally, after a good hour of this behaviour, she ran out of identical telephones to despise. She would have to take matters into her own hands. Literally.

"UrrrrrRRgh! I can't believe that idiot!" Bulma collected up the nearest receiver with a fierce scowl and punched in familiar digits.

"Hello?"

"**Happy Birthday** you **STUPID JERK!"** She hung up the phone by smashing it into the glossy tiled floor and stormed into the next room, kicking the scattered telephone components aside on her way through.

The day, in case you hadn't already surmised, was Yamcha's birthday. It was Yamcha's birthday, and Bulma had fashioned a present for him. It was an excellent present. A present which had taken over a week of her precious time and energy to finish. A present she had built specifically, just for him. A present she was certain he would adore. A present which was now sitting on a table, ready to be unwrapped.

Except that it **couldn't** be unwrapped. In fact, it couldn't even be delivered. Because she and Yamcha were still not speaking to each other.

"Jerk!" She repeated for emphasis. How could he not call her that week?! She had instructed that they start putting his calls through again SIX DAYS ago! Almost a whole **WEEK** she had been waiting for him to call her! **Nothing?!**

"Stupid-stupid-stupid **STUPID JERK**!" She shouted into the void.

The phone belonging to the neighboring room she now inhabited began to ring.

Her hand dashed to it. "YEAH?!"

"Bulma?" Yamcha's voice came tentatively over the line.

"Oh, so now you **FINALLY** call me!" She yelled. "Well FORGET it buddy. You've missed your chance. I've already decided. I'm giving your present to Vegeta!"

"Did... uhm.. Did you just call me a second ago?" He asked.

"Well I needed to make sure you were still ALIVE, didn't I?!" She hollered. "After all I haven't heard a word from you! You could have been dead in a ditch for all I knew!"

"Wait, so you did call me?" He translated.

"Do **NOT** change the subject!" She replied. "I called because it was your birthday and I wanted to know if you were alive or dead. DON'T go thinking this means you're off the hook for what you did!"

"Oh THAT!" He jumped in. "I... uhh... I thought about that and I'm really really sorry, babe! I swear I'll never do that EVER again."

"What?" Bulma felt her temper retreating.

"Totally!" He continued. "Come on Bulma... Can't you give me another chance?"

"Wait..." She felt her mind catching up.

"Please babe!" He continued. "I messed up, I know it, but can't you forgive me, just this one time?"

"Oh gosh." Bulma knew that tone. "Yamcha... do you even know what-

"OF COURSE I know what I did!" He quickly interrupted. "I... uh... I thought about it and I can't believe I didn't realize it before! Gosh, I'm real' sorry babe. Truly! Come on... Just this once?"

Bulma felt a smile creeping onto her features. "So you figured out what you did, huh?" She asked suspiciously. "Okay... So, what was it?"

"What was... OH! Uh..." He scrambled a second. "Uhm... Oh gosh, babe, don't make us both re-live it! I'm sorry, isn't that enough? Can't we just put it all behind us?"

A silence stretched on the phone line.

"Hello?" Yamcha's voice echoed uncertainly. "Babe? ... Bulma? ... Are you still there? ... Hello?"

"Pfft! H... He...hehehe... AHAHAH!" Bulma burst into a fit of giggles. "Oh my gosh you crazy jackass, just get over here and get your birthday present already!"

"Really?" He said excitedly. "Wow, great!"

"See you soon, babe." She hung up the phone and continued giggling as she flopped onto the couch. Sure enough, the nearly three weeks of silence had done nothing at all in helping Yamcha decipher what he'd done to make her mad. But even so, perfect boyfriend that he was, he apologized anyway. She sighed. Gosh, that boy...

.

.

.

Yamcha parked his car and jumped out excitedly to run over to her in the doorway of the house.

"Hey you." She said as more of a greeting than anything else.

"Hey yourself." He replied, noting the effort she had put in to make herself especially appealing. He grabbed her wrist and tugged her through the door, kicking it shut behind them.

She smiled, he was so predictable. "Di-

She didn't get a chance for more. As usual, Yamcha's mouth was on her like a shot, sinking deep into his 'I missed you' kiss and preventing her from forming words at that particular moment. Not that she minded... she had to admit, she had missed his mouth. His hands toured her body, forgetting the lack of privacy in his eagerness to find his favorite places. It wasn't long until she began to join him, sending one of her **_own_** hands down to...

"Mmmph!" He exclaimed into her mouth as her fingers started to work. "Mmnn... MNnn! AHH!" He finally broke the kiss to pant as she giggled. That had done it. She loved their 'make up make out'. He grabbed her body and pulled it against himself, more as a shield from view than as a sign of affection, and started to breathe into her hair in halted gasps.

"B-Babe someone's gonna see us!" He protested weakly, though he made no attempt to remove her hand.

"Don't sweat it! The place is ours." She said against his collar as his body shuddered in her hands. "Now, as I was **_saying,_** did you miss me?"

"Oh GOSH babe, you... uahh... o... you have no idea!" He worked his hands along her behind. "Th...ah! ... That... a-AH!"

"Something the matter?" She asked innocently, though they both were perfectly aware of why he couldn't finish a sentence.

He shook his head. "Mmmnn... hhhn... Nope. Everything's just exactly right, babe..." He pinned her against the wall and let her continue. "Gosh you're... Gnn... aAh... good with your hands..."

"It's genetic." She smiled, watching him settle into the sensation. She started kissing along his neck. His cue to take her upstairs, which he did, like clockwork.

Later that afternoon...

Bulma sighed with exhaustion, looking down at her tangled mess of bed sheets wound around a sweat-ridden, breathless Yamcha. His face revealed his body was finally satisfied and he was now able to have a coherent conversation.

Yup. They were officially back together.

She picked herself up from her position by his hips to lay beside him, her head resting on one of his shoulders as her hand teased along his abdomen under the sheets. To her surprise it had only taken five times! After three weeks it would usually take at least seven. Maybe she was getting better? She hadn't been on autopilot. For some reason she'd felt like she should really put in her full effort today. Her whole body felt like it was made of lead, especially her neck and jaw after that last stretch, but quality was important.

"Wow..." He kissed her head, wrapping an arm about her lovingly. "All those years in the desert, wanting a girlfriend... I never imagined in a million years I'd find a girl like you."

"Right back at you, babe." She smiled, then felt a little sting as she remembered his non-proposal where it had turned out 'everything he'd ever dreamt of' had nothing to do with her.

Bulma pushed the little sting aside, she would not have this feeling destroyed. He was warm. He was holding her. He loved her. He regularly told her he loved her! And she didn't feel ready to marry him yet, so what did it matter if he never dreamt of marrying her? It shouldn't matter. It **_didn't_** matter.

She wanted to snuggle up, right there with him forever, but the sun would set soon and though she was a romantic, Bulma also thrived on attention and praise, and an opportunity for such was too good to miss.

"So," She finally said, breaking the moment. "Is my perfect boyfriend ready to open the present his even more perfect girlfriend made him?"

"Woah, right, I totally forgot!" He laughed. "Aww man, babe... if it's anything like the last present I'm gonna need a couple minutes."

Bulma laughed and gave him a playful slap. "It's nothing like that, you letch! Come on."

She picked her aching self up and stumbled into her clothes. Yamcha soon followed, a look of pleased anticipation in his eyes.

"Not those." She said as he reached for his pants. "Go get one of your battle suits out of the closet."

"Huh?" He looked at her curiously, holding his pants. "Why?"

"Oh... no reason..." She said innocently. "You just look so handsome in your training gear."

"Uhh... okay." He went to her closet to grab his orange gi from his small selection of spare clothes.

Bulma smiled mischievously.

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><p><strong>Please favorite! I just LOVE when my little story slowly climbs up the long list of VegetaBulma fanfics!**


	11. Chapter 6B

"**HOLY** **%$#& !**" Yamcha screeched in endless profanities as he scrambled backwards across the ground, torn, scuffed and gasping rapid breaths.

A large, floating metallic creature lowered its cannon at him and fired into the grass beside his head, singeing his hair. Yamcha flipped from his backside onto his stomach and tried to scurry away. The creature cut him off, shocking him with such impressive speed that he lost his footing. It shot out an arm to clamp about his ankle and lifted him, wriggling, into the air like a fresh caught fish. He tried in vain to fire at it, but nothing penetrated. Another arm clamped about his neck to apply gentle pressure as he panicked and tugged at it, desperate for air.

It lowered its powerful cannon squarely at his chest and slowly powered up.

"Gnnn! Ghha-aAAAH! Shut it OFF! SHUT IT **OFF!"** He hollered.

The creature's cannon lit up brighter and brighter, gathering its shot as he struggled helplessly in its grasp. Then, just before firing, it powered down.

**"YAMCHA!"** Puar shot over to him. "YAMCHA! YAMCHA are you okay?!"

"He's fine." Bulma strolled over, chuckling with more than a little amusement.

"So?" She said, grinning at his inverted, red face as he still dangled in the grips of the machine. "What'd ya think? Pretty cool, right?"

**"COOL?!"** He shouted. "This is your idea of **COOL?!"**

He continued to wriggle about in a pointless struggle to free himself until Bulma finally opened a small access panel on the creature and fiddled inside. The clamps responded to her attention by releasing her boyfriend, letting him fall in a gasping heap on the hard, desert stones that were now riddled with scorch marks.

"Yeah!" She replied. "It's a battle simulator! I figured with the androids on the way-

"That thing is **psychotic!"** He yelled, still shooting glances at it with eyes full of terror as he struggled out of the 200 pound vest she had put him in. "How could you BUILD something like that?!"

"I used Frieza's stuff!" She announced, resting her hands on her hips proudly. "The bot's outer shell was made from the walls of some kind of prison cell thing he had, and that vest was out of this super dense-

"WHAT?!" He yelled. Cutting her off again as his vest impacted on the ground with a heavy clunk. "Since when did Frieza give you his stuff?!"

"He didn't _give_ it to me, silly." She started to get annoyed. "I got Vegeta to go-

**"VEGETA?!"** He yelled, working frantically at removing each of the 50 pound boots. **"HE** put you up to this?!"

"Hey!" She shouted. "I'm starting to think you don't even LIKE this thing!"

"LIKE IT?!" He hollered. "That THING is demented!"

"What?!" She started to yell. "What the heck is your PROBLEM, Yamcha?! YOU were the one that said you were gonna get serious about training for the androids! An ANDROID is a MACHINE in case you didn't know! I thought you'd LOVE it!"

"I'm NOT going anywhere NEAR that thing!" He yelled back at her. "That's nothing LIKE an android! It doesn't even have arms and legs! Just those clamps!"

"Well excuse me!" She replied. "I didn't have **time** to make it look pretty! I focused on building it strong! I'm a **BRIEF.** We do robots, not androids! But the principle is the same!"

"The HELL it is!" He yelled. "Martial arts is about pure body against body. I fight PEOPLE! It's completely different!"

"People come in different SHAPES!" She said. "Frieza had a TAIL, right? What does it MATTER what shape it is as long as it can FIGHT?!"

"AAUGH!" Yamcha attempted to kick the vest away frustration, but lined up the angle wrong and only ended up moving it about 10 feet. He grabbed his toe as it throbbed and lifted off. "Forget it! You don't GET it! You don't know ANYTHING about fighting!" He flew off.

"Didn't stop me from **KICKING YOUR** **A-**

But he was gone.

"RRRGH!" Bulma stormed back to her hoverjet, puffing the battle robot and weighted gear back into their capsules indignantly.

.

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><p>Hey guys, this was going to be a much bigger chapter, but I've been sick all week so the rest will have to wait. Thought I'd post what I got done rather than miss the update.<p> 


	12. Chapter 6C

Bulma raged against her ungrateful boyfriend. How DARE he not adore his present?! Did he have ANY idea how much thought and effort it had taken to put something like that together?! She bet he was just ticked off because it beat him...

She brought the hovercraft up and pointed it for her home, then thought better of it and came about.

"So I don't know anything about fighting, huh?! Well I might be a girl, but I bet I know plenty!" She grinned as the jet shot through the air. "And I know someone who'll back me up!"

A short while later Bulma was coming in for a smooth landing on the front lawn of a tiny, inconspicuous home in the deep forest.

"Bulma! Hi! What a surprise." ChiChi emerged from the front door, rubbing bloodstained hands on a towel.

"ChiChi! Hey, long time no see." She smiled, eyeing the woman's bloody hands hesitantly as she hopped down. "What's shakin'?"

"I was just fixing dinner." She said cheerily. "We're having wild boar! Goku spotted a nice fat one this morning and dropped it in. I've just about finished gutting it. I think I'll make it into stew and serve it over rice tonight. A good, wholesome stew is just perfect for a growing boy! There should be plenty if you stick around?"

"Uh..." Bulma hesitated. Wild boar? Didn't they often carry toxic bacteria? She supposed saiyans were immune. "Thanks anyway, but I'm just stopping by real quick."

"Oh?" ChiChi questioned. "Is everything alright?"

"Yeah, fine." She replied. "It's nothing serious, I just need to ask Goku a couple things. Is he nearby?"

"I don't think so..." ChiChi said, glancing at the sky. "They took a packed lunch today. That usually means they're planning on going pretty far. I did hear some explosions coming from the west rise this morning, but they faded off before long. They might have gone to train in high altitude again."

She wrung the bloody towel in her hands, causing it to drip threateningly. "Uuurg! If my sweet, little boy catches cold in the snow Goku's not getting anywhere **near** this dinner!"

Bulma tried not to roll her eyes. She looked into the distance. True to ChiChi's words, the area was silent. Far to silent for Goku and Picollo to be anywhere nearby. She should have brought a scouter...

"How long until they'll be home?" She asked.

"Well, dinner is in about two hours so... about two hours." ChiChi said.

Bulma tried to hide her disappointment. Great. Now she was going to have to wait.

With ChiChi.

Well, anything for the satisfaction of seeing Yamcha's face when the greatest fighter in the **universe,** Son Goku, agreed with **HER.** The argument would be totally won. Yamcha would NEVER argue that Goku didn't know how to train. Her boyfriend would come grovelling on his hands and knees, full of apologies and **begging** to have his present back from his incredible girlfriend that he didn't deserve at all.

"Well, guess I'll be staying to dinner after all!" She laughed.

"Wonderful!" ChiChi clapped her hands together. "Come on inside and I'll make some tea."

Bulma sat, holding her tea and trying not to barf as she watched ChiChi slop the last, pungent organs into a Capsule Corp bio-bin and puff them out of the way. She began stripping meat away with an ease that only came from years of practice as she chattered about plans for using the creature's bones in a hearty noodle soup tomorrow, and a few dessert recipes she had wanted to try that required boiling the skin for gelatin.

Wow. Bulma couldn't believe the former PRINCESS, only daughter of the 'Ox King' who had grown up in a castle full of endless treasure had turned into this... backwoods housewife.

There she stood, in her little silk dress, cheerfully hacking into another bloody carcass from a husband who apparently regularly dropped off a massive, fresh killed "thing" in the morning and expected her to have it bled, gutted, skinned and cooked by nightfall. But somehow, that was the life this woman had chosen. The sight completely baffled the self proclaimed city girl in her kitchen. She filled with a new respect for the tiny woman. Endlessly, single-handedly feeding two hungry saiyans for years. She smiled. And here her chef thought he had it rough.

Eventually the conversation drifted to Gohan. It wasn't long before ANY conversation with ChiChi drifted to Gohan. Bulma cringed, despising the subject. This was _exactly_ why she hadn't wanted to wait with her. She reminded herself again, Gohan wasn't her kid. It wasn't her place to criticize.

"My dear little boy!" ChiChi rhapsodized. "You wouldn't BELIEVE how all this silly training has been taking from his studies! By the time he gets home he can barely keep his eyes open!"

"You're still having him study?" Bulma asked, honestly sympathizing with the seven year old.

"Of course!" She confirmed as she drove her meat cleaver deep into the unfortunate boar. "I WON'T let him fall any further behind! Ever since Goku's crazy brother ran off with him it's just been one excuse after another to get away from the books. First that year in the desert with Picollo getting ready for those saiyans, then WEEKS in hospital, and THEN he barely had ANY time before it was straight off to Namek, then there was that fiasco with Garlic Jnr. and now THIS! THREE YEARS! Do you know three years will take him right up until his 10th birthday?! When I think that my little boy will have thrown away SIX of his most important academic years wasting time with a gang of deadbeats!"

"Those deadbeats saved us all..." Bulma mumbled.

"Huh?" ChiChi turned to her.

"Uhh... What happened to the wall?" She asked louder. One wall of the house looked like it had been freshly plastered with drop sheeting still covering the floor. A can of paint and some brushes were sitting ready for the next phase of repair.

"GOKU HAPPENED!" ChiChi shouted. "He sent me clean through it!"

"WHAT?!" Bulma leapt from her seat. "Why?! Oh my gosh, ChiChi are you okay?!"

"Huh?" ChiChi looked at her like it was a strange question. "Of course. It was a pretty flimsy wall. Just wood and render. I had a few scuffs but I'm fine now."

"How on Earth did Goku send you through a wall?!" She asked.

"Oh, that's not tha HALF of it! LOOK at this!" She opened the cupboard under the kitchen sink to reveal a bin filled with broken glass and crockery. "My FAVORITE dinner set! And you wouldn't BELIEVE how many cups we go through. Ever since he got back all it takes is the slightest distraction and smash! The great super saiyan, on his knees with the dustpan apologizing again. I'm getting pretty sick of it!"

"I guess he's a lot stronger now..." She said thoughtfully. "Wow... Yamcha's gone away training a bunch of times and he always comes back a little rough, but he never came back so much stronger that he completely couldn't control it. I can't imagine... I guess it must make it really difficult to be a couple."

"That's an understatement!" ChiChi groused. "That dinner set was a gift from my father on our WEDDING day!"

"No," Bulma clarified. "I meant... you know..."

ChiChi tilted her head innocently.

Bulma sighed. "I'm with a fighter too ChiChi. I know the life. They get under the covers, things get going and they forget that not everyone can lift a car. Yamcha's put a few good bruises on me over the years. It happens. Not that I let him get away with it!" She laughed. "I'm just saying I can sympathise. It's always kind of awkward in the bedroom for a while after they lose control. How are you guys going?"

"In the bedroom?" ChiChi asked. "Oh! No, thankfully Goku's pretty good there. He doesn't toss around in his sleep much. He hasn't sent me flying at least."

Bulma paused, uncertain whether ChiChi was feigning ignorance out of delicacy or if she and Goku genuinely 'got busy' so infrequently that she didn't understand. Or maybe ChiChi just didn't want to talk about that stuff with her? That kind of stung. Not that they had ever been particularly close, but... She decided no matter which hypothesis was correct, it was best to change the subject.

"So," She said. "They're really going for it out there. I bet Gohan's enjoying all this time with his dad."

"Oh, of course." ChiChi sighed. "I just worry... Gohan's at an impressionable age and he looks up to his father so. And to Picollo almost as much. I worry he'll start ignoring his studies and try to become a full time fighter just to please them."

_/Just to please **THEM?** Does she really believe that?/_

"..." Bulma hesitated, but she was still smarting from ChiChi's dismissal of her effort to reach out, and more than that it was a question that had burned at her since the first day she'd met the boy. She was, after all, a scientist. Curiosity ran deep in her blood. She knew it was the question nobody was allowed to ask. Everyone knew that to seriously ask that question was to step straight on a landmine, but...

Here they were. Just the two of them. And she was ticked. And the subject was up.

She asked.

"ChiChi... Why don't you want Gohan to become a fighter?" Bulma looked into her teacup, avoiding eye contact.

"I don't want him to be a deadbeat!" She responded almost automatically. "I want my son to become a great scholar and make a real difference in the world."

"I'm a great scholar, ChiChi." Bulma said. "So's my dad. The world is full of us. But Gohan is special. He's... something new and incredible. Completely unique. Why throw that away? When the Earth is under attack, all us scholars can do is watch and hope. The day that saibaman grabbed Yamcha... I'd have given _anything_ to be able to fight like Gohan right then. When it comes down to the wire, us scholars aren't much use."

"Nonsense!" ChiChi argued. "Your radar brought Yamcha back to life!"

"The dragon brought him back to life." Bulma countered. "Not me. If not for Goku, I'd have died long before I even met the dragon. Without strength to back it up, brains doesn't go very far."

"Don't be so hard on yourself! Scholars make a real difference in this world! Your company's work has changed the entire planet for the better! Architecture, agriculture, transportation... Capsule corp completely revolutionized just about everything that really matters!"

"Matters?" Bulma's temper started to flare. She knew when someone was trying to flatter their way out of a subject. "ChiChi, it **doesn't** matter! So we live a little more comfortably... We would have **died** comfortably if not for those guys! I can't fight! I could wish for immortality and train for a million years and I **still** wouldn't hold out one second against what your son could do by the time he was five. Gohan's saiyan! Fighting's in his blood! He's **born** for it! So cut the baloney and tell me the REAL reason. Why don't you want him to fight?!"

"How DARE you!" ChiChi got powerfully mad. "He's MY son! He's born for what I **say** he's born for and I'll raise him how I darn well want! And what's more Gohan **wants** to be a scholar!"

"Oh please! You can't actually believe that!" She yelled back. She was over it. She wanted an answer. A real one.

"What?!" She shouted. "Who do you think you are?! I know my son! He WANTS to be a scholar!"

"Give it up, ChiChi!" Bulma yelled, digging her heels in. "We both know you're smarter than that! He wants to make YOU happy, that's all! Why don't you want him to be a fighter?!"

"Because I **WAS** one!" She yelled.

Bulma pulled back, startled.

ChiChi continued. "Have you ever had a broken jaw?! Huh? Or taken a punch to the gut?! Because I have! My father trained me to fight since I was a little girl! I've taken ALL those punches! I know how they hurt and there's no way I EVER want my son to feel that! Broken bones, shaking hands, tasting blood for days! That awful panic when you land wrong and wonder if that snap you heard was your neck breaking..."

She breathed a second, her eyes full of painful memories. "NO! NOT my little boy. There's plenty of fighters! Let someone else do it! And if that makes me a bad mother then to hell with it!"

Bulma hesitated, her mind suddenly envisioning the 'sweet old Ox King' with his harmless laugh and his tiny daughter, a bloody mess by his hand.

His 'training' had worked. She had grown into the strongest female fighter on the planet. And then instantly married a man she'd met for a few seconds years ago and run from her father's home into the deep forest where she never EVER fought again. What nightmarish childhood had kept her dreaming of that little boy on a cloud who once promised to take her far, far away?

_/No wonder she was so mad when he never came back.../_

But despite it all, her mind continued to protest in the background. Yes, it was tearing his mother apart, but if not Gohan, who? Who else was there to fight?

Goku wouldn't hang around forever. He loved his family in his own way, but not enough. As soon as the androids were gone he would start looking at the sky again. Once he left Vegeta would soon follow. The earth guys were getting older, they probably only had another 10 years before their power would start to fall.

Maybe Piccolo? Would he stay once Gohan was grown? Even if he did, that didn't solve it. Gohan wouldn't let his mentor fight alone. He'd storm in, trained or not, even if it meant certain death. Wasn't it better to train him? Prepare him?

But as she looked at his tortured mother, none of that mattered. Bulma could see ChiChi knew all of that. It was why she was letting him train right now even though it was plainly obvious every cell in her body cried against it. The former princess was now, right to her core, a mother. And when she thought of history repeating, of her own child being beaten with inhumanly strong fists, as she had been, was it any wonder she screamed at her husband to stop it? She knew her boy was saiyan. But she was human.

"I'm sorry." She finally said, softly. "Wow, ChiChi I... I'm sorry. I never thought... I... I never... knew..."

"Well, now you know." She said in that stern, matter of fact voice she had as she dragged her pain back inside. "Listen, it's getting late and who knows how long it'll be before those boys get back so-

"Want a tutor?" Bulma interrupted before ChiChi could kick her out of her house and sever all acquaintance forever.

"What?" ChiChi shot her a scathing look that when combined with her bloodstained hands made Bulma truly question the Nimbus' assessment of the small brunette.

"A tutor. For Gohan..." She continued. "Like you said, after the androids go he'll probably have some catching up to do. I bet we, me and my dad, could probably help. Plus we could get him to do odd jobs around the place. Give him a good reference. Schools like that stuff... How about it?"

ChiChi's terrifying face slowly retreated as she thought on the blatant bribe. Finally, gradually, her mouth spread into a mercenary smile. "Have I mentioned how much I like your hair?"

Bulma sighed with relief.

A while later dinner was smelling surprisingly appetizing as three sweaty, battered and bruised males (well, two males and a third that looked male but had actually turned out to be more of an 'it') entered the house.

"Wow ChiChi! Smells great!" Goku sniffed the air appreciatively.

"Woah!" Gohan was the spitting image of his dad as he raised his nose to the pleasing scent as well. "It really does! Hey Mom, is that the boar Dad caught this morning?"

"It sure is!" ChiChi said cheerfully even as Bulma watched her eyes doing a pained circuit of her son's subtle limp, bloody lip and angry bruises. "Now you boys go wash up and then Gohan can set the table."

"Yes Ma'am!" They both chorused as they scurried towards the bathroom with Piccolo trailing silently behind.

A few minutes later Goku sat at the table waiting to receive his first helping of the stew while Gohan helped in the kitchen.

"Bulma!" He finally noticed her sitting opposite. "Hey! When did you get here?"

"I've been sitting right **here!"** She exclaimed, enraged that she could be so easily ignored. "You walked straight PAST me you dope! And then you sat down right next to me and STILL didn't see me!"

"Wow, you've really been there the whole time?" He looked at her like she'd performed some sort of magic trick.

"Yes." Picollo confirmed. "She has been here since before we returned."

"THANK you!" She huffed. "At least SOMEONE notices when there's a gorgeous girl in the room!"

"Aheheh..." Goku rubbed his head. "Wow! Sorry Bulma. The food just smelled so good... I guess I must be really hungry!"

"Are you ever NOT?" She asked. Bulma decided to let it slide. Goku would always be Goku.

"Okay. So, first thing's first, how do I look?" She asked.

"Huh? You look fine..." He replied with confusion. "Why? Are you sick or something?"

"So I **DON'T** look pregnant?!" She demanded.

"Huh? Pregnant?" He blinked at her. "Oh Wow, that was FAST! Wait, le'me see..." He brought his face to the level of the table and stared at her stomach.

"What the heck are you doing?!" She looked down in confusion at his spiky head.

"Hmm..." He reached forwards with a finger, getting ready to prod her stomach. "I can't see anything..."

**"GOKU!"** She slammed her fist down onto his hair which in turn slammed his jaw into the table.

"Ow!" He exclaimed. "What was that for?!"

"Don't go around touching beautiful girls in weird places!" She shouted at him. "We already went **through** all of this when you were a kid!"

"Aww... But you asked me to look!" He sulked.

"To LOOK! I said look! Not touch!" She chastised.

"But you really don't look pregnant!" He said. "I can't see anything there!"

"Well then just say that!" She replied.

"Do YOU see anything, Picollo?" He asked.

"No." He replied, also staring intently at her stomach. "She does not appear to be with child."

Bulma watched the two men staring at her body with intense concentration like they expected an alien was about to pop out of it.

"Would you quit that already?!" She yelled. "Gosh! BOTH of you! But thank you anyway. Aways nice to know I don't look pregnant."

Bulma smiled proudly. Three weeks of dieting had finally payed off.

She opened her mouth to speak again, but at that point Goku's first helping was set before him and he was lost to the world.

"So was that what you came to ask?" ChiChi questioned as she distributed servings from the large pot of stew in the middle of the table and took her seat beside the equally large pot of excess rice.

"No. Actually I came to ask some stuff about otherworld." Bulma said. Bulma always found that if you wanted someone to help you win an argument, it was best not to tell them they were helping you until you had already won.

She picked up a small pinch of the stew in her chopsticks while she waited for Goku to rejoin the conversation.

Wild boar...

It sure _seemed_ edible, but...

"Otherworld?" Gohan asked. "How come you want to know about that?"

"Well, everyone who went there came back a lot stronger and I was curious about how King Kai trained you all so fast. With the androids coming in just three years, getting stronger really fast would be good. I know King Kai used his planet's gravity to boost up your strength. Vegeta's got an even more intense version of that idea going right now."

She decided to live dangerously and take a bite. To her surprise the stew tasted great! Not that the taste determined whether or not it was toxic, but... What the heck! She was finally off her diet and suddenly famished. And truthfully, she had always wanted to see otherworld.

"Vegeta?" Goku asked through his rice, having finished his third bowl of stew and being now capable of talking between and around his mouthfuls. "Hey, I thought I sensed him at your place. How's he doing?"

"It's hard to tell..." She said thoughtfully. "He pretty much keeps to himself..."

"Maybe he could use some company." Goku suggested. "Hey yeah! I bet that's just the thing! Right Picollo?"

Picollo shot him a glare.

Bulma perked up. Was Goku finally taking an interest in the other saiyan? "You know I've been thinking that too, Goku! I bet if you asked him he'd love to come and train with you guys out here!"

"WITH** US?!"** Goku exclaimed loudly, then inhaled his rice and began coughing up a storm as he slammed his fist against his chest.

"See what happens when you talk with your mouth full, Goku?" ChiChi chastised as she passed her husband a cup of tea. "Now Gohan, I hope you're watching this. Talking with food in your mouth is both rude and dangerous! I hope you never take after your father when it comes to table manners!"

"Yes mother." Gohan acknowledged as his father gulped down the beverage gratefully.

"What's the big deal?" Bulma asked. "You asked Yamcha and Krillin... You asked everyone **but** Vegeta. I thought you guys got along pretty well on Namek. Plus, it's gotta be hard training with an odd number. Vegeta could be a fourth and even things up! Come on, Goku. Why not let him hang with you guys?"

"U-Uhh..." Goku hesitated. "Well I guess I just thought YOU could keep him company, Bulma..." He said apologetically.

"Can't we let him come, dad?" Gohan asked. "I mean, if he's lonely and all..."

"Aww, Gohan..." Goku looked at his son. "It's really nice that you wanna help, but... I think it's better for everyone for Vegeta to stay at Bulma's place for now..."

"Why?" His son asked with all the innocence of his age. It was beyond him to imagine his father deliberately excluding someone without any real reason.

Bulma watched Goku looking for a reason to give his son. Wow. She had to admit, she was almost as disillusioned as Gohan was about to be. She really never thought the day would come when she saw Goku openly exclude someone. It looked like the guys had been right toI scatter away from Vegeta when the other saiyan's return was announced. She couldn't believe it! She had been so certain Goku wouldn't care in the slightest that his place among the Z Fighters had nearly been filled while he was away. In fact, she had thought he'd be thrilled! But apparently not.

To think Goku was capable of being that jealous and petty to a guy who'd done nothing but try to help. Gosh! He was gone for two years! THREE if you included the year he spent dead. The Z Fighters needed a leader. Did he honestly think they'd wait for him forever?

Picollo spoke up. "Vegeta's fighting style is brutal, Gohan. Developed through his years as a criminal operative of Frieza. It would not benefit you to learn it."

**"Criminal?!"** ChiChi burst in, right on cue. **"**Goku is that true?!"

"Uhh... heheh..." He laughed like he didn't want to agree, but Bulma caught the little 'thank you' glance he sent to his Namek buddy.

Bulma shot Picollo a 'level 10 look'. He'd planned that! He was **in** on this!

"ABSOLUTELY NOT!" ChiChi slammed her ladle against the table. "There's simply NO WAY I'm letting a brutal _criminal_ anywhere near my little Gohan! Forget it Goku! I agreed to this training, but I'll **never** let Gohan around criminals!"

"Piccolo's a criminal!" Bulma countered, delighting as the large, green man's eyes tripled in size, his brow beading with obvious sweat. "How come HE gets to stay?!"

"He's on thin ice, believe me!" ChiChi announced, leering at him a second as well. "But at least he keeps Goku in line. Plus he's put that life behind him now and become a productive member of society! Did you know, our Picollo's actually quite the seamstress! He made me just the _cutest_ little dress!"

Picollo blushed. "G... Goku damaged the previous one, so I..." He trailed off, desperately trying to think of a way to glue back together his shattered masculinity.

"Yeah, but your's was **way** prettier than the old one, Mr Piccolo!" Gohan smiled admiringly at him, not understanding most of what was going on. "I liked the little pink flowers!"

"Yeah!" Goku agreed heartily. "They were a really nice touch, Piccolo!"

Piccolo's face reddened further. "T... They grow near where I meditate." He tried to explain.

"Hmmph!" Bulma sulked. Something told her Vegeta would NOT be willing to learn to make pretty dresses just to train with Goku. And besides, regardless of what the prince did, it wouldn't matter.

Vegeta had been "marked". Goku didn't like him and so nobody would go near him.

She tried to push her rage and disappointment in her old friend aside.

"So anyway, otherworld." She brought the subject around. "I wanted to know about the training you got from King Kai. I heard there was a monkey chase?"

"Oh yeah! Bubbles!" Goku beamed nostalgically. "Man that little guy could run! Hey, I wonder how they're all doing up there? You know I bet Gohan's fast enough to catch him by now."

"Stop **right** there Goku!" ChiChi cut in. "You are NOT taking our son to the afterlife to go chase a dead monkey!"

"Aww, ChiChi... it's just a bit of fun. Plus, I'm _pretty_ sure Bubbles isn't dead." He paused to consider.

"I DON'T CARE!" She yelled. "The last time you went to that King Kai's house nobody heard a word from you for an entire year! Gohan is STAYING on EARTH! Am I clear?"

"Yeah, okay..." Goku sulked a second until his next bowl was placed before him and the idea was instantly forgotten.

"And then there was some kind of floating bug?" Bulma asked innocently as if she wasn't perfectly aware of all of this already.

"Gregory." Piccolo confirmed in a voice laced with annoyance.

"Gregory!" Goku rejoined the conversation excitedly. "Woah I remember that hammer King Kai made me chase him with! Gosh that thing was heavy!"

"A heavy hammer?" Bulma perked up. Now they were getting somewhere. "So, basically King Kai was just a regular guy who trains fighters with high gravity, weighted gear and a super fast thing to chase and dodge?"

Goku opened his mouth to respond, but Bulma didn't let him. She drove home the argument with a satisfied air like a prosecutor who knew they'd just won the case.

"So you don't need to **be** a martial artist to train one. Right? You just need the right equipment. Isn't that right?"

"Uhhh..." Goku looked at her, utterly confused by the sudden change in atmosphere.

"Don't be absurd." Piccolo interjected. "Those ridiculous games weren't the training. They were merely a test to prove our worthiness to receive the real training. As if I would train by chasing that idiotic floating cricket!"

"I thought he was a grasshopper..." Goku said.

"Either way he was as much waste of our time as that absurd joke contest! " Piccolo responded.

Bulma felt her argument crumbling. Those contests weren't the training? Yamcha had made it sound like that was all there was to it. King Kai wasn't just a regular guy who sat back while his pets and his planet's gravity did all the work? He was actually a martial artist?

"You told a joke Mr Piccolo?" Gohan looked at him with fascination. "Can I hear it too?"

"Hey, Wow I never thought of that!" Goku's eyes focused instantly on the stoic Namek as well. "You **must've** told a joke. How'd you make the old guy laugh Piccolo?"

Piccolo blanched awkwardly. "W... Well it..." He started to sweat. "It wasn't really..."

"Please Mister Piccolo?" Gohan pressed, looking up at him with big, dark eyes. That kid knew how to 'work it'.

Bulma watched the former mass executionist start to visibly weaken under the powerful 'ultimate cuteness puppy eyes' attack. Had she been in a better mood she'd have loved this show. But she wasn't in a better mood. In fact she was in a pretty lousy mood.

"Well then if THAT wasn't the training what was?!" She demanded, interrupting Gohan's victory over his mentor.

"Huh?" Piccolo gratefully gave her his full attention.

"What WAS the training?" She asked again. "You were out there for months, what we're you all doing? Running laps of snake way?"

"Uhh... Well King Kai was actually pretty strong once he decided you were worth his time." Goku said. "Plus he knew some crazy cool techniques! That Kaio Ken sure came in handy when I started fighting Frieza. Hey, did he ever teach that one to you Piccolo? I haven't seen you using it..."

Bulma sat, ignoring the rest of the conversation. It looked like Yamcha had been right. A rare and thoroughly unpleasant thing to find out. Only a martial artist could train a martial artist and she didn't know anything about fighting.

Darn.

Dinner finished and she left to go work out what to do with her silly battle robot that had seemed so cool until right then.

.

.

.


End file.
